


Nothing’s Set in Stone

by Kazzy



Series: Doesn't Matter What You Own [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Pre-Series, child characters, relationship, spoilers 1x23
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:24:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 50,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kazzy/pseuds/Kazzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Years later she’ll look back and think her eleven year old self had the right of it. She should have continued to ignore the pair because between the two of them they are going to completely mess up her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I should preface this my saying that I ship Laurel/Oliver but that there's no denying that their relationship is destructive at times.
> 
> The title is from 'We Raised Hell' by The Feelers. The full line is: _No, nothing's set in stone, doesn't matter what you own (yeah, we raised hell)_. It seemed appropriate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be polishing each chapter up a little over the next little while. (admittedly chapter 1 is probably one of the worst)

Laurel meets Oliver Queen on the first day of sixth grade.

Or not really, because she spends the entire seven hours with her eyes fixed firmly on their teachers pretending that her uniform is not second hand or that she’d rather be at the public middle school all her friends are attending. But six months ago when her parents had sat her down and explained that they wanted her to go to private school – the expulsion rate at the other school for starters – she’d nodded along in understanding. 

Sara’d made faces and teased Laurel about wearing a tie while refusing to acknowledge that she’d be attending herself in two years. But this is for the best Laurel knows – even if it wasn’t what she wanted.

In her class there are eighteen students; a little more than half what her fifth grade class had been. The floor is carpeted in an attractive blue with matching curtains, while the furniture is new and unbattered (Tommy and Oliver will do their best to remedy this over the next three years). Ms Kerr smiles more in the first hour than Mr. Bakker did in the entirety of the previous year.

For homeroom they’re seated in alphabetical order of surname so Laurel, sitting by the window in the second row, has Tommy to her right and Oliver beyond him. A seating plan that’ll last until the second week when their teachers realise that the two boys need at least a six person radius between them in order for anyone to learn anything effectively. But all Laurel is really aware of at this point is that the two boys spend most of the morning giggling and not writing the school’s code of honour into their brand new notebooks.

Anyone can see that they’re friends and have known each other for a long time. For a while it seems to be that everyone in the class is friends and have known each other a long time which makes Laurel lonely, wanting to go to school with her old friends (even if the English teacher was arrested for selling drugs), until she figures out which of the other students are just as strange and alien to the new situation as she. By the end of the year she will be as intrinsically linked to the rest of school as anyone, but for now jealousy settles in her chest causing a hard knot of anxiety.

Laurel speaks to Oliver for the first time when they’re assigned a project on dolphins for science. By then it’s November, their teachers are smiling a little less and between them Oliver and Tommy have made three trips to the principal’s office. Laurel feels smugly secure that she’s the most praised in the class and she’s part of a tight knit group of girls who call each other every evening to discuss their day and every morning to discuss what they’re wearing.

She’s irritated when their teacher announces the partnership but nearly so much as he seems to be. He’d expected to be partnered with Tommy or one of his other friends; she had as well, but whatever, it’s one dumb project. He slumps over to her desk and thumps his bag down beside her when none of his bargaining works on Dr. Huff. Laurel is a little hurt by this reaction but she calmly works out a practical way to share the workload and a schedule for them to meet at the library.

Oliver rolls his eyes at her. Laurel worries that’s she’s going to be doing this project on her own. When he’s half an hour late to meeting her at the library after school she feels her worries are justified. 

But he appears, arms crossed, wearing a deep frown – neither his bag nor any books in sight. “This place is creepy.”

Laurel blinks. “It’s a library.”

“Whatever. We can do this dumb project at my house.” He starts to head away expecting her to follow.

“But the books are here.” Laurel stays sitting down.

“There are books at my house.”

“On dolphins?” 

She makes him wait while she photocopies pages from the encyclopaedia, for which he grudgingly agrees to pay, and while she takes out several more books.

His home is a long way out of town and she hopes she’s allowed to call her mom from there because this going to take longer than a trip to the library should. Her dad has a late shift, Sara’s with friends so no one will miss her for a while, but by the time she and Oliver do the work and she’s gets home her mom will be waiting. She doesn’t want anyone to worry about her. 

Oliver’s driveway seems to take almost half the journey and she stares out the window at the grounds wondering what kind of house his family could possibly have that could go with the expanse of land. By now she is used to the wealth many of her classmates, used to their expensive clothes and massive houses, used to living one foot in a world that is alien to her. Yet none this prepares her for the size of the Queens’ mansion.

She stares with wide eyes as he calmly leads her inside, either unaware of her surprise or too used to seeing it on people’s faces to care. Instead he takes her on a tour through the wide and winding corridors putting his favourite rooms on display. The trip ends with the nursery where he introduces her to his one year old sister. Thea, dressed in a fluffy pink jumpsuit, burbles ‘Ohee’ at him when he picks her up and shows her off for Laurel’s approval.

“I wish my sister were this cute.” Thea grips her finger and Laurel gently pumps their hands up and down in greeting causing a roll of baby giggles. “It’s not as nice when they can walk and talk and steal your clothes.”

“I don’t think Thea’s going to want to steal my clothes.” He carefully gives his sister back to the nanny’s care before leading Laurel downstairs to what she supposes is the living room (it has a television, anyway). The room is probably a good half the size of her family’s entire apartment with a cavernous ceiling and impossibly neat in a way that her home could never be with her parents working full time.

“What do you want to watch?” Oliver kneels by a cabinet which he opens to reveal a large collection of movies arranged in a neat and practical order.

Laurel shakes her head, overwhelmed. “Something good.”

They don’t get any work done that afternoon because watching movies is a much more fun way to spend the time. In fact Laurel forgets about the project; instead she is enjoying sitting on the massive couch munching from the large bowl of popcorn while Oliver sits in an arm chair with his own bowl. They talk through the boring parts of the movie – some type of slapstick comedy – mostly about school and what they think of their teachers but also a little gossip.

The credits are rolling a couple of hours later when a woman sticks her around the door frame. “Oliver is Tommy...” she trails off in confusion when she realises that it is Laurel who is sitting on the couch – not Tommy Merlyn.

“Hi Mom,” says Oliver. “Tommy’s not here.”

Laurel slides of the leather couch and brushes off her skirt feeling a twinge of nerves. “Hi Mrs. Queen. I’m Laurel Lance. Oliver and I have a school project on dolphins.” She straightens her shoulders, lifting her chin up.

Mrs. Queen smiles and asks Laurel to stay for dinner and tells her that’s no problem for her to use the phone to call her family. 

An hour or so later when she enters the dining room Laurel is once again hit with a wave of intimidation at the vast room and long table but both Mr. And Mrs. Queen are friendly, engaging her in conversation without a second thought. Plus it’s hard to feel to out of place when Thea is there throwing peas at everyone from her high chair (‘Ohee’ she shrieks when she gets fistful in Oliver face; much to his chagrin and everyone else’s amusement).

Much to her Father’s annoyance, given it’s past her bedtime and the next day is a school day, Laurel isn’t dropped off by a driver until twenty past nine. Her mother asks if she had good time – she did, but she’s disappointed they didn’t do any work on the project. Still there is plenty of time to work on it – nearly two whole weeks.

Only every time she tries to corner Oliver so they can actually make a start he manages to distract her with something else inviting her to spend time at his house or visiting hers out of curiosity. Once he disappears to do something with Tommy and once he forgets altogether. 

“We have to do this now!” she snaps at him the day before the project is due.

In what she will come to realise is true Oliver Queen fashion he shrugs with grin playing across his lips. “Sorry.”

Furious she storms off, anger carrying her all the way home and into the room she shares with Sara. At her little battered desk she copies a few facts in large wobbly writing – simulating water – on to a piece of poster paper then traces a dolphin from one of the books. It’s all she really has time to do and it’s certainly not her best work. She considers leaving Oliver’s name off the project in revenge because if she’s going to get a bad mark he can have none – but in the end she credits him anyway. 

The assignment will mark the first time she gets a ‘C’ because of Oliver – but it won’t be the last. Oliver has an uncanny way of distracting her from her work.

Laurel is early the day after they present it to the class and she sits outside the classroom reading as she waits for the day to begin.

“Hey Laurel.”

She looks up to find Tommy Merlyn standing in front of her. It’s not surprising he’s at school this early (he’s usually either very late or very early), but it is surprising that he’s talking to her at all. Laurel’s not sure he’s ever even spoken directly to her before. For the brief time they’ve been sharing a common acquaintance they haven’t spent all that much time together. 

Right now, considering how angry she is at Oliver she nearly ignores Tommy by extension but decides not to bother.

“Hey,” she says and goes back to her book.

Tommy sinks down beside her but doesn’t try to engage her in further conversation. In fact they sit there in silence until two of Laurel friends arrive – nearly at the same time as Oliver. Deliberately she turns her back on the boys so she doesn’t have to look at either of them (but especially not Oliver).

Years later she’ll look back and think her eleven year old self had the right of it. She should have continued to ignore the pair – because between the two of them they are going to completely fuck up her life.

-x-x-x-

Their school has three dances a year. Given the number of students enrolled all three grades attend the same three dances: one at Christmas, one in spring and one for the eighth graders’ graduation. In sixth grade, Laurel – like the rest of her classmates – attends with a group of friends who mostly stand around the edges of the school events room and pretend to be having fun. They do dance awkwardly to a few songs, but it’s not really a thing they get into more than once or twice.

The following year Laurel is the first girl in seventh grade to be asked to the Christmas dance. She says yes more out of surprise and a desire not to hurt Alex’s feelings than because she likes him at all. He is, peripherally, a friend of Oliver’s (not that that has any real bearing on anything). Her friends giggle and poke each other when they realise what has happened then sigh wondering if anyone is going to ask them. Laurel gets her first taste of what it’s like to be the centre of gossip; it’s an enlightening experience making her feel both powerful and self-conscious.

Thankfully it is only two days later when someone else is asked so she only has to bear the brunt of the whispers and scrutiny a short while.

For each succeeding dance she will attend with a different boy and her dad doesn’t seem to know whether to be glad or furious. Her mother finds designer dresses at second hand stores and alters them to fit Laurel (no one seems to notice, but then no one has commented on her family’s financial status in the year and half she’s known them). Sara teases her for having a boyfriend – which isn’t what it is at all.

In seventh grade the dances are a little more fun. And a bloated sense of superiority leads them to sneer at the younger kids hovering around the walls, dance to most of the songs and try to stay out of the eighth graders’ way. Laurel drinks too much soda, gets the giggles, and stays awake until nearly two in morning after she gets home, much to her family’s irritation.

For the spring dance she attends with Isaac Clarke who promptly ditches her to dance with a couple of eighth graders. She’s irritated but her friends are furious, promising dire retribution coming up with some hilarious way to humiliate him in front of the entire school. Laurel shrugs her own anger off but sort of enjoys playing the injured party – it certainly garners her a lot of attention.

As her life seems to exist as an excuse to make itself awkward, she goes to the final dance of the year as Tommy’s date. For most people that would probably just as exist as a cute anecdote – if they bothered to remember it all – but given how messed up the three of them get (her, Oliver, Tommy) it’s just...well, awkward. Still she has more fun than she can remember having in a very long while – and the memory that endures is the way he smiles the entire evening. 

In the end it’s always easier to remember Tommy happy; anything else hurts too much.

-x-x-x-

As the weather warms up she finds herself often at the library, despite invitations to friends houses to spend time lounging by their pools in the sun. Right now she’s studying for finals when a stack of books lands on her table followed by Oliver throwing himself into the seat beside her.

“I need your help.”

Laurel raises her eyebrows. “This is a library.”

“That’s how badly I need your help. I wouldn’t come in here if it wasn’t a dire emergency.” He sighs dramatically heaving half the books to the ground. “I’m flunking math.” According to the dramatic edge of his tone this seems to be roughly on par with the end of the world.

Laurel is uninterested in theatrics as she’s not sure she’ll ever know enough to do well in geography. “So go ask Carter – he’s the got the top in math.”

“Nope. I hate Carter. You’re... kind of okay.” There’s a smirk hovering around his lips while his eyebrows flick upwards in amusement.

Laurel rolls her eyes. Nearly two years of Oliver Queen and she’s become used to him and his sarcasm. But she understands what he’s saying. She hates Carter, too.

“Please Laurel?” he begs, eyes wide, fingers interlaced under his chin.

She nods. “Okay. One hour today.” Melissa’s pool is heated which is nice as the evening air begins to cool and Laurel has promised to be there by five. “And we can study together tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” He grabs his maths text and opens it to the right page. She surprised when he seems genuinely relieved turning to her with a serious expression which he mostly seems to maintain through the session.

-x-x-x-


	2. Chapter 2

-x-x-x-

Eighth grade passes in much the same way as the previous two years. Oliver and Tommy manage to cause more trouble than they should (but not enough to get kicked out of school). Laurel gets good grades, joins clubs and one day wakes up to the realisation that she might just be the most popular girl in school. She wonders if she should be a bitch or maybe that she is a bitch and just doesn’t realise it but she’s happy so she just carries on in the centre of her large group of friends.

At the spring dance she ditches her date to hang out with Oliver and Tommy in an empty maths classroom tucked behind the teacher’s desk. The only illumination is a security light set outside the window. Tommy is actually under the desk while Laurel and Oliver sit leaning against the wall, legs outstretched, touching slightly at the ankle. 

Oliver has snuck in some beer stolen from his dad. It’s her first real experience with alcohol and it tastes bitter, unpleasant; she makes a face but keeps drinking when the boys laugh at her. The boys have both apparently had it before so they have no trouble finishing theirs and splitting the final can. Laurel manages two thirds before she gives up in disgust, surrendering it over to them to finish off. 

She enjoys the light-headedness and the way she feels warm and languid so she slumps down at an angle that has her unintentionally leaning against Oliver as she giggles at their tall tales. A natural shifting of his weight presses him closer to her side and she can feel the tingling heat of his body through her dress and his shirt and trousers. Without any thought or planning her head drops to his shoulder and when he takes her hand she curls her fingers around his automatically.

Across from them Tommy pauses mid sentence, eyebrows going up, but he recovers quickly, picking up his story about accidentally setting his bedspread on fire while playing with a lighter he’d filched from one of his dad’s associates. According to him, his dad had ‘hardly been mad at all’ only rolling his eyes and taking the lighter off Tommy commenting on the stupidity of lighting fires in his bedroom. Oliver laughs and Laurel giggles but Tommy’s smile is closer to a grimace.

Story mostly finished, Tommy’s voice trails off and the three of them let the silence stretch between them for what seems like forever until a stray few bars of music reach them. Laurel panics when she realises there’s less than ten minutes until the end of the dance and the three of them hurry through the quiet halls avoiding detection until they are back among their fellow students.

None of the teachers manage to pick up that they’ve been gone, let alone that they were drinking, but Laurel is lucky it isn’t her dad collecting her afterwards. Because her mom notices _straight away_ and it’s only some fast talking that means Dinah doesn’t stomp back into the school – or pass it on to Laurel’s father. But it doesn’t take long before Laurel has even made her mother laugh at some of the antics Tommy and Oliver described to her.

By the time they arrive back to the family’s apartment she’s clearheaded again and she smiles brightly at her father but doesn’t get too close when he asks if she had a good time. Without being able to smell the alcohol he seems unaware of anything untoward that she got up to at the dance. She doesn’t kiss him goodnight as she heads for the room she shares with her sister.

This late she tiptoes into the bedroom because Sarah’s asleep, or meant to be (having been grounded for lying about a detention and so unable attend the dance herself). However as soon as the door is shut Sarah flicks on her bedside light catching Laurel mid way between the two beds – one with a cream and blue comforter the other in red and pink.

“So did you dance with Oliver Queen?” Younger sisters are completely bewildering because that came out of nowehere – and how does Sarah know she how she spent the evening?

“What?” says Laurel. “Why?” They did end up dancing the last dance of the night together, the music ending a heartbeat before the lights came on leaving them blinking at the brightness, his arms around her waist, hers resting on his shoulders.

Sarah huffs dramatically. “Everyone knows Oliver wanted to go to the dance with you, but Luke asked first. Someone always asks first.” Implied, but not stated is the ‘you are so stupid’ which Sarah’s in sixth grade _how does she know this?_

“No I didn’t dance with Oliver Queen. We hung out that’s all.” If she mentions the beer then she gives Sarah ammunition if she ever needs to get around Dad. And Laurel’s already talked Mom out of telling him.

“You do know half the boys in school are in love with you, right? They’re always coming to up to me all like ‘oh, Sarah can you ask Laurel out for me?’” she simpers. “I tell them they can ask you out themselves.”

Half way out of her dress, Laurel turns to her sister with wide eyes. “Oh, good,” she says faintly, her mouth dry. It’s true some of them have come up to her and asked her to go to the movies with them or to some other event – depending on how much their families are worth. She’s so far turned them down because she doesn’t even want to think about her dad and his ‘no dating until you’re sixteen rule’. It’s been hard enough to convince him to let her go to the dances with a partner let alone go somewhere unsupervised.

Sarah rolls her eyes. “Eugh. Figures. You are so blind.” She snaps off her bedside light leaving Laurel to fumble around in the dark.

-x-x-x-

Laurel spends most of the rest of the year studying. Both Lance girls are at private school now and even with Dad’s promotion and Mom’s pay rise it’s still a pinch. Next year when Laurel’s at prep school it will be worse; but if she can get a scholarship – even a partial one – that’ll put less strain on her family. Her friends complain about how she’s always busy and Laurel drops several clubs so she can spend more time in the library. The grief she is given is worth it when her good grades become better. 

Oddly enough she ends up seeing more of Oliver as he is once again in danger of failing so spends some of his time at the library studying next to Laurel with bad attitude. But he’s the one who convinces her to stop after an hour and half each afternoon so they can roam the streets until she has to go home for dinner.

He buys her ice cream or hot chocolate and sometimes they try to trick liquor sellers into letting them buy alcohol – which Laurel only goes along with because she knows there is no way in hell it’s going to work (especially as she stands behind him shaking her head to the sales assistants who Ollie is trying to convince it’s really for his ill mother). In a move that surprises her younger self, but won’t in years to come, all of this leads to most of the school assuming that they are in fact dating.

Laurel tries to correct this notion but no one believes her (years later it’ll be Tommy who tells her it’s because Oliver was telling them different). On the plus side, this means that Oliver is the only one to ask her to the graduation dance, shifting from foot to foot as they both sip their hot chocolate sitting a picnic table in the park. She accepts with a graveness that matches his own but can’t help the happiness that bubbles up at his smile.

Unfortunately their plans come a screeching halt when one at night at dinner Sarah is arguing for an allowance raise so she can buy a dress she’s fallen in love with at an upmarket boutique. When neither the dress nor the increase in allowance are approved Sarah sulkily announces, “Yeah, well, Laurel’s dating Oliver Queen.”

A moment of silence settles over the table – the only movement is their mother’s which part in surprise.

“What?” says their father, ice coating every letter.

“I am not!” snaps Laurel.

“What happens at the library?” sneers Sarah.

“We _study_.” Which they do, because Laurel is serious about that scholarship.

“And afterwards?” Sarah is enjoying herself now. Their father’s face is turning purple and their mother’s grip on her fork is an awkward movement somewhere between picking it up and putting it down. It’s not often Laurel slips up enough to get into trouble.

“We get ice cream.” And attempt to engage in underage drinking – sometimes with Tommy or some of Laurel’s friends. She turns to her dad. “We’re just friends.”

“They’re going to the dance together next week.”

“I don’t think that’s appropriate, Laurel,” says her father.

“What?” she says. “Why not?” But there’s a sick swooping in her stomach. She knows what’s coming next.

The argument escalates from there as her parents are worried about her spending so much time with a boy she’s spent nearly three years describing the mayhem he causes. It’s not like that...Oliver’s not like that...but she lacks the words to tell her parents exactly what she means. In the end she pushes her chair back from the table and runs to her room before the tears that are burning in her eyes start to fall.

She cries lying face down on her bed for an indeterminable length of time, but when the flood begins to slow she turns on her side, curling in on herself and staring blankly across the room – her side as neat as ever, Sarah’s the usual tip. Before long she hears her parents outside her door. They’re arguing about something but she can’t make out about what. A pause lengthens and then someone knocks.

Her mother would enter without waiting for an answer; Sarah wouldn’t bother with knocking. “Go away!” she shouts at her dad.

“Can I come in?” he asks through the door.

She wants to say no, wants to shout and rage and yell, but she can’t. She slides off the bed and stands on the other side of the door. “Are you going to shout at me some more?” she asks.

“Are you going to shout at me?” he counters.

Laurel thinks about that for a moment. Sighing softly she opens the door. “No, I’m not going to shout.”

Turning sharply she goes and sits, back against the wall, on her bed. Her dad sits on the foot of her bed and just looks at her for a long moment. “You can go to the dance with Oliver,” he says.

She nods but doesn’t say thank you. “Why are you spending so much time at the library, Laurel? That’s not something you used to do, or not nearly as much.”

She hasn’t told her parents what she’s trying to do because...well she’s not sure why – she just hasn’t been able to find the right time to say it. “I want to get a scholarship,” she tells him now, staring down at her hands twisting the hem of her t-shirt.

“What?” says her father. This time, though, he’s surprised, not angry.

She chances a look up to find him looking at her patiently. “You and mom are always talking about how much it costs to send me and Sarah to school. Next year it’s going to cost even more. I thought it would help.”

“You don’t have to do that, Laurel.”

She pulls her knees up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. “But it’ll help, right?”

He looks at her for a long time before giving a long sigh. “It’ll help,” he says. “But you really don’t need to do this.”

“It’s okay,” she says, leaning over and hugging him. “I don’t mind.” If it means her parents will fight less, she’s all for it.

“What’s Oliver Queen doing there?” he asks. “You can’t tell me he wants a scholarship.”

She blinks. “He’s trying not to fail. I told him that he should have been studying from the start not with a month left.”

“And afterwards?”

She shrugs. “There’s a few of us.” Which is stretching the truth just a little given that Tommy sometimes tags along with them; but it’s a lie that’ll make her dad happy so she doesn’t explain.

He nods and stands up. “Your mom can reheat your dinner if you’re hungry.” At the door her pauses and turns back. “Laurel, if I find out you and your friends are getting into trouble – at any point – we will be having this conversation again. Got it?”

Laurel flinches slightly as his words hit home. “Yes, Dad.”

-x-x-x-

Things never to tell her dad: Oliver kisses her at the dance.

Also she kisses Oliver.

(and then the history teacher comes by and makes them stand a foot away from each other)

-x-x-x-


	3. Chapter 3

-x-x-x-

Oliver passes eighth grade (just) so his parents throw him a party that Laurel’s parents grudgingly allow her to attend. She aced all her exams and her behaviour record remains spotless; not to mention that as far her parents are aware she hasn’t done more than hold hands with Ollie (Sarah has been successfully bribed on that account).

When the letter arrives two days after school ends for the year informing Laurel that she’s been awarded a full scholarship with subsidies for uniform and travel, her parents take her and Sarah out for dinner. Laurel is thrilled with her success and even though her friends and Oliver don’t quite understand the reason why she’s so happy they’re impressed by her achievement.

Laurel’s parents both work full time so she and her sister are left largely unsupervised through the summer. This means she can spend a lot of time with Oliver without having to account for it – provided she’s home before her parents. Though the two are rarely alone. At home there’s Sarah, at her friends’ there is always three or four of them lounging around a pool or living room, at Oliver’s there is usually Tommy. Also Thea, who follows Oliver around like a puppy but gets bored of watching the three of them sit on the edge of the pool dangling their legs in the water. 

Laurel’s okay with this.

As much as she enjoys being alone with Oliver it is overwhelming and she is scared of what happens next, scared of what she might do if left alone with him for too long. And then scared of what her dad might do when he finds out. 

In the second to last week of the summer, Laurel and Sarah are sent to stay with their grandmother who lives in a town a couple of hours outside of Starling City. The stay is just ten days long but feels like forever, cut off as she is from the life she’s become part of – her friends, their pools, shopping, and Oliver.

She calls him every day and for the first few days they spend a couple of hours on the phone a day. By the fifth day their conversations are down to half an hour (Gran’s house is so boring) and on the seventh day Laurel forgets completely. She remembers on the eighth, but not the ninth and on the last day she figures she’ll be seeing him tomorrow anyway.

When she gets home she calls but has to leave a message with his mother who says he’s out with Tommy. He doesn’t call back that evening, but that would be because he knows her dad doesn’t like it when he calls after 8pm so if he arrived home late then he’d wait.

There’s five days until school starts, so most of the following one is spent in shopping for Laurel’s new uniform and buying school supplies for both girls. When they get home – juggling heavy bags and Sarah snapping at her mother and sister – there’s no message waiting for Laurel from Oliver (though several from her friends and Sara’s). She’s a little puzzled but she shrugs it off and calls him again. He answers this time sounding apologetic, when she asks, for not returning her call but insisting that he has to go out and he’ll call her later.

By now she is completely thrown and a little hurt. On the couch she curls her feet under her and wonders how to handle the situation. Deciding on a course of action, she fetches her little address book from her room and flips to the appropriate page to find the number for which she is looking.

Tommy answers on the first ring.

“Hello?”

“What is Oliver doing this afternoon, Tommy?” she says without preamble.

“Oh hi, Laurel, how was your trip?” he says, sounding awkward. The rat Laurel smelled is getting stinkier by the second.

“Fine. What’s Oliver doing this afternoon, Tommy?”

“Oh, uh...”

“Tommy!”

“I don’t know,” he lies.

Laurel hangs up scowling. She snaps her address books closed, glaring into space, ignoring the concerned looks her mother throws her as she’s passing to the kitchen. For some reason she’s been given the run around and she needs to find out why. Both her parents will be back at work tomorrow so she can go out to Ollie’s house then – he won’t be able to lie to her face, she’s sure.

But if the fourteen year old Oliver isn’t as an accomplished liar as he is at twenty-two (or twenty-seven for that matter), Laurel isn’t as adept at spotting his lies either. Standing in the foyer of his family’s mansion with Thea skating around in socks, he successfully convinces her everything is fine and she believes him. 

Until she turns up at Aja Black’s ‘back to school’ party to find the hostess hanging off the arm of Laurel’s (now former) boyfriend.

For long moments, as her heart does sick loops in her chest, all Laurel can do is stare while neither of the objects of her shock seem to have noticed her entrance. In future she’ll have no problem confronting him about his infidelity. Right now, though, she’s too young and hurt to do anything other than flee, tears ruining her makeup with a confused Sarah and two furious friends trailing in her wake.

Erica’s ride hasn’t left yet so they catch it back to her place while heaping vitriol on Aja’s head and planning revenge. Laurel’s adult self is horrified by her words and how much work they put into ruining Aja’s reputation in the first week of school but her fourteen year old self is gratified and triumphant in her vindication.  
Perhaps because of this, or maybe for more mundane reasons, Oliver moves on from Aja to Tina in only a handful of weeks. She manages to hold on to Oliver for six weeks – though she’s the one who dumps him in the end – then it’s Amy’s turn.

Laurel declares herself ‘over him’ after Aja’s gone. But she continues to watch him from a distance: between joining the freshman debate team, the track team, campaigning to be elected class president and maintaining the grades needed for her scholarship. She only has one class with him – geography – where even though he slinks into the seat next to her after a couple of weeks she sees no need to interact with him at all. His best efforts to get her attention are met with stony silence and a self-righteous glare she directs towards the teacher.

But Ollie has a pull over her; no matter how hard she tries to get away he keeps tugginf her back. They orbit each other like binary stars – the universe pulling them apart and their own gravity tugging them back together. The most frustrating part is he’s not manipulating her intentionally – certainly not at fourteen. He might be trying to get back in her good graces, trying to get her to do what he wants, but he’s not malicious (not towards her) nor is he trying to control her. He just seems to want to be around her.

Their _friendship_ is impossible to quantify. There’s no way for her to understand why when she wants to hate him so much that she just can’t. The love is there – compulsive, obsessive – when they don’t comprehend what they feel. Romance and desire are things they’ve only just started to test, explore, and then cut short. Everything she feels for him is visceral and raw and confusing. Her skin tingles when he walks into a room, even when her back is to the door, and she can feel his warmth when she sits beside her, even when they aren’t touching.

She is Laurel, he is Oliver and she doesn’t know how to shape her life without him in it.

A month in and she caves. He’s been out sick with the flu so she copies her notes and gives them to him as he walks into the classroom, because that’s what friends do...everything else is irrelevant. She ignores the way his surprised smile makes her stomach flutter.

-x-x-x-

Amy lasts until Christmas and beyond into January. On the final day of the winter break, Laurel agrees to go out with Ryan Bensen because he asks and she’s too tired of trying to figure out what Oliver is to her. Ryan is much, much simpler. He’s tall, good looking – and trouble. She lies to her parents, lies through her teeth, because if they didn’t like Oliver they’re going to hate Ryan.

Most of the time she spends with him involves copious amounts of alcohol, stolen from his sister. He’s rude to teachers, he cuts classes and he’s repeating the tenth grade. When he laughs it’s at other people’s expense. Laurel can’t quite help falling for guys that are dangerous, but this is the only time she ever dates someone who is actually abusive.

At first it’s fun even if his brand of mocking humour makes her uncomfortable. She has to be careful not to go home drunk – carrying a toothbrush around so she can scrub her teeth to keep the smell of alcohol off her breath and the one time she accidentally spills some on herself she has her sweater under the bathroom tap in seconds hoping it’s enough. 

Ryan stands at the door to leer at her clad in only a bra from the waist up. When he runs his hand up her back she can’t help flinching and shrugging him off, uncomfortable with the lack of barriers between them. “Don’t,” she warns.

He backs off, his expression hard, nostrils flaring, fists clenching at his side. He’s blocking the door and all of a sudden, for no concrete reason, she feels unsafe and panicked. The world narrows until all she can see is him, trapping her in, while the all the warnings her father has ever given her flash through her mind. She rocks back on her heels and the sweater falls from out of her nerveless fingers.

“I should’ve known,” he snaps before leaving her standing half dressed in front of the mirror.

Her breath’s coming in short sharp pants and her skin is pickling. Biting her lip to fight back tears she bends down to scoop up her sweater and tug it over her head. The damp fabric is uncomfortable against her skin but it’s a relief to have even the flimsy barrier back in place.

“Where’re you going?” he asks as she collects her purse and makes a beeline for the door.

“Home.” She doesn’t stop, throwing open the door and walking out.

“Fuck you!” he calls after her.

Slamming the door is the only answer she feels capable of giving.

Anger and fear get her to the bus stop. The bus ride home is filled with commuters and Laurel is grateful for their tired indifference as she sits near the back, shaking, curled in on herself. She sleepwalks from her stop to home and nearly is hit by a motorcyclist while crossing the street (who, to be fair, had run a stop sign). 

She is greeted by a silent, empty apartment and she takes few deep breaths, appreciating the peace before her tears start. They roll her cheeks making no more noise than a slight hitch to her breath as she makes her way to her bedroom – doubly glad that Sarah is not about. She strips of her clothes and puts them in the hamper making sure to remember to take out the wash later.

Her hands are still shaking as she puts on her pyjamas and slides into bed under the familiar blue and green comforter. Lying on her back, she stares blankly at the ceiling, tears still running down the side of her face. She tries to block out the afternoon’s events but is mostly unsuccessful until she drifts off into a doze and then a deep sleep.

Sometime later a cool hand on her forehead wakes her and for a second she panics until she realises she’s in her room and it’s only her mom. “Laurel, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” she asks.

Laurel pushes herself up and looks around. The faded blinds have been pulled shut, the only light coming from the lamp beside her sister’s bed. Sarah’s book bag and school clothes have been tossed carelessly on her bed – she’s obviously been and gone while Laurel slept.

“I’m fine,” Laurel says. “Just tired.”

Her mother hums, but doesn’t comment beyond telling her it’s time for dinner and then at Laurel’s negative response says they’ll keep it aside for her if she’s hungry later. Once she’s gone Laurel lies back down to try unsuccessfully to fall back asleep, but she’s disturbed an hour later when her dad knocks on the door with a dinner plate and to ask what’s wrong.

“I’m fine,” she insists, settling the plate on her lap. Now that she’s faced with the casserole and rice she finds she is actually hungry.

“You know you can tell me if there’s something wrong, don’t you?” he says, his gaze trained on her face. “Or your mom.”

Her fork pauses halfway to her mouth and for a second she considers telling him all about Ryan but she can’t quite force the words past her lips. “I know, Dad, it’s okay.”

He stands and drops a kiss on the top of her head. “I’m here if you need me – that’s my job all right?”

Laurel bobs her head up and down. “Okay,” she repeats.

He sighs softly. “Don’t leave the plate in your room over night.”

“I won’t,” she promises.

-x-x-x-

Laurel waits for Ryan at the school entrance the following morning nervous and unhappy, an apology hovering on her lips. She tells herself she was scared by nothing the day before and she needs to relax sometimes. Firmly she squashes the part of her would like an apology from him as well. As the first bell approaches her friends wander in and she gives each one a tense smile and a slight nod. Only Erica stops to talk for a moment but she shrugs and moves on when Laurel says she’s waiting for Ryan.

Two minutes to the bell and Laurel is just about to head for her homeroom – lateness could affect her scholarship – when he hurries through the door. He grins at her, kisses her cheek but doesn’t stop; instead he calls over his shoulder that he’ll get a detention if he’s late again this week. 

She blinks in confusion and relief that he doesn’t seem to still be angry when her experience has taught her he can hold a grudge. That one nagging voice reminds her that _she’s_ annoyed he didn’t apologise, but then the bell rings and Laurel has to run so she gets to class before the teacher.

-x-x-x-

The next couple of weeks are smooth and reasonably happy for Laurel. She tries to avoid being alone with Ryan for any length of time, but he’s good at manipulating her into spending time at his apartment while his family is out. Given that Sarah is never guaranteed to be out they never go back the Laurel’s family apartment.

Tommy breaks his leg pulling some stunt out his bedroom window which is a catastrophe he doesn’t seem to see. Especially not when the girls figure out he needs someone to carry his books around for him. Laurel catches on pretty quick what he’s doing and insists that she is the one who takes his things to his next class after either of the two they share.

“You’re not actually trying helping me, are you?” he asks with narrowed eyes when she dumps his things on an empty bench in the Chemistry Lab.

“Nope!” she says before zipping off to her English Lit class on the other side of the school.

“Why’re you spending so much time with Tommy Merlyn?” Ryan asks at lunch, shoving the organic salad sandwich his mother always made him away.

Across the table Erica’s eyebrows shoot up. Laurel who had thought it would be obvious just shrugs in response to her friend’s silent question while answering Ryan’s aloud. “Because Tommy is my friend.”

Ryan isn’t mollified by her response but he does let the matter drop when Erica changes the topic to an algebra quiz set for the next day.

“Are you going let him tell you who to be friends with now?” Erica hisses in Laurel’s ear as they both head for drama.

Laurel shrugs once again in response but doesn’t actually answer. The next morning, though, she lets someone else carry Tommy things to his next class for him deciding if he wants to be fawned over he can. So resolute is she that she forgets to even say good morning to him and subsequently misses the puzzled look her throws at her back or the momentary flash of hurt in his eyes.

-x-x-x-


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please read the trigger warning at the start.

-x-x-x-  
 **TW: (attempted) assault** Few details, mostly this chapter deals with the fall out.

-x-x-x-

A Friday marks Laurel and Ryan’s second month anniversary and he convinces her to skip drama to spend time with him – though not because he remembers why the date is important.

Laurel follows him through the halls squashing back her guilt and nerves – it’s not like she’s missing any actual learning. And Mr. Garland never takes the roll anyway. She’s not going to be caught she reassures herself as Ryan tugs her along; fingers interlaced with hers, gripping just a shade too tight.

But when she sees where he’s taking her she balks. His chosen location is an out of use supply cupboard with a faulty lock. Inside the walls are lined with shelves that still contain a smattering of their original contents: aged text books and several empty boxes of pens. She can smell the dust and it tickles her nose until she presses her wrist over to stop from sneezing.

“I don’t think this is a good idea. What if we get caught?” she tugs her hand out of his and steps back.

“Nahh, no teachers know about it.” He pulls her inside and shuts the door, turning on the dim light. “Perfect.”

Laurel disagrees. When Ryan pulls her to him, she places both hands firmly on his chest. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Ryan. I want to go back to class.”

“Get over it. It’s fine,” he instructs her leaning for a kiss.

Using her leverage she keeps him from actually making contact. “No, Ryan. I don’t want this.”

He doesn’t release her so she stamps on his foot hard and then shoves him with as much force as she can muster away from herself. Eyes wide and lips parted Ryan falls back against some shelves and hits his head. Laurel uses his distraction to attempt to escape into the hall.

But he’s not done with her yet. Shouting a few choice profanities, he grabs her wrist and yanks her around and back into the closet. 

Before she can react, his hand flashes out and slaps her across the face so hard that her head snaps painfully to the side, her jaw clicks and she stumbles enough to fall to the ground. From the floor she looks up at him, where he stands above her looking down, his fists clenching and unclenching. Between her shock and the dim lighting she doesn’t notice how pale he is or just how wide his eyes (not that it would have changed her reaction), so when he bends down to offer her a hand up she flinches back and shouts at him to leave her alone.

Ryan swears at her and leaves. Laurel counts to twenty slowly, trying not to cry, hoping that by the time she emerges he’ll be long gone. He is, but she then doesn’t know where to go. Her cheek is stinging, her head thumping painfully and she’s pretty sure her lip is bleeding. The nurse is probably the best place for her right now but she doesn’t know how to explain what happened when she’s inevitably asked. Home is where she wants to go but cutting school altogether is a really bad idea – especially when her parents find out she did.

Not paying much attention to her surroundings, she runs through the corridors without meeting anyone who might ask inconvenient questions until she’s out on the school lawn. Old trees dot the grass and she tucks herself behind a weeping willow so she’s not visible from any of the classrooms, pulls her knees up against her chest and buries her face in her arms, free to cry at least until the bell rings for lunch.

“Laurel? What’s wrong?”

Because sometimes the universe is kind, the voice belongs to Oliver and not someone who might mock her or worse. Over the top her arms she watches him kneel down beside her but she draws back when he reaches out to rest an arm on her shoulder and he lets it fall away.

“Is it Ryan? Because I can punch him for you.” He sits beside her but thankfully not close enough to touch.

“If anyone is going to punch Ryan, it’ll be me,” Laurel says as clearly as she can through her stinging lip but unable to prevent a slight lisp.

Feeling a little safer she looks up only to see the colour drain from his face before he flushes and ugly purple. “I’ll kill him,” he says. The flatness in his voice makes her think that he might be completely serious and the way his fists are clenched at his sides only add to the impression.

“Ollie! No.” Laurel grabs his wrist to get him to look her in the eyes. She doesn’t think he’s capable of murder but he will get himself in a lot of trouble. “Just leave it okay. I’m fine.”

“Have you seen your face?”

“Ollie!” Her fingers fly to her lip which stings as she makes contact with the cut she can feel there. She hisses slightly and then brushes against her cheek bone making pain blossom anew. In her locker there is a compact mirror and she wishes she had it so she could see her face. “Is it that bad?” she asks.

Wordlessly he nods. With a gentle touch he grips her chin and turns her face so she looking directly at him. “Here.” He hovers shaking fingers above her lips but doesn’t make contact with her skin. “And here.” His hand drifts over her left cheek. “You can see...” he swallows. “You see where...he...where his hand...”

“Oh god.” She buries her face in her arms again so he can’t see her – she wishes she could stay like that until her face is back to normal or she turns to stone. “I need to get out of here.”

“No,” he says. “You need to go to the nurse.”

“I just want to go home.” But she allows him to coax her to see the nurse because she trusts him. In an unconscious imitation of Ryan he interlaces his fingers through hers to tug her to her feet. For a heartbeat she freezes but then finds that the warmth of his skin softens the memory just a little and she pushes herself up.

To make conversation and keep her thoughts from going around and around as they make their way back across the lawn to the school’s main building, she asks him how he found her. Flashing a quick grin at her he tells her that he’d been to the bathroom during class and then had decided to take the ‘scenic route’ back.

Laurel is reluctant to let anyone see her given the strength of Oliver’s reaction so she keeps her head down and lets her hair fall to obscure her face during their trip through the corridors. The classrooms they pass remain closed and they don’t encounter anyone on their way. As amazing as it seems, somehow it’s the same period as the one she skipped; Erica and the rest of her class are probably doing some form of theatre sports (again).

Going unnoticed calms her a little but when they get to the nurse’s office the whole situation goes pear shaped (at least from Laurel’s point of view). The nurse takes one look at her face, sits her on the edge of the small cot with its pale green wool blanket and starts gently dabbing her lip with antiseptic. As she hands Laurel an ice pack she quizzes Oliver on what happened.

His details are sketchy but surprisingly accurate for all Laurel hasn’t actually told him what occurred between herself and Ryan in that supply closet. Over the last two months Oliver’s been able to collect an awful lot of dirt on her boyfriend – from the fact that apparently none of her friends like Ryan to the fact that he actually threatened Tommy to get him stay away from Laurel (and keep Oliver away). 

When his story winds down to him finding her on the lawn, the nurse sends Oliver up to the office to bring the principal to them, rather than have Laurel trek back through the school again to risk being seen by the other students. After he’s gone she asks if it’s all true, adding that any confidence Laurel shares will be kept between them. Laurel hangs her head and nods, shame cutting through her. 

The nurse’s lips tighten, she turns away for a moment to fuss with something on her desk. When she turns back her tone is brisk and her eyes shining with what could be tears. As she checks Laurel’s ice pack she asks who it’s best to call at this time of day (Dad – Mom’ll be in a meeting) to take Laurel to the doctor.

By the time Oliver is back with the principal in tow, the nurse already has handed a clipboard to Laurel to write out her version of events while she calls Laurel’s dad. 

“Oliver, I’ve told you you can return to class.” The principal is looking over her shoulder as she enters the nurse’s office. Laurel clutches the clipboard to her chest only half way through her description of the events that led up to Ollie discovering her on the lawn.

“Only if Laurel says I can.” Despite the principal’s best efforts, Oliver enters the room and strides over the stand in front of Laurel. “Do you want me to leave?”

Laurel shakes her head. “No.”

Oliver nods and sits beside her on the cot. He gently takes her left hand in his then angles his chin at the principal. 

Ms Callahan sighs at his actions but pulls a chair over to sit opposite Laurel. “Now, Laurel, I understand you and Ryan had an altercation this morning.”

She’s the only person who hasn’t blinked at the sight of Laurel’s face. Her calm manner allows Laurel to take a deep breath and begin her story from start to finish, not stammering once but blushing a little at the admission. “Am I going to lose my scholarship?” Laurel asks at the end – surprising even herself at how worried she is about the prospect. But then one of the conditions is that she maintains a high standard of behaviour – scholarship students are meant to be role models.

Her parents are talking about moving to a bigger apartment in a nicer area, closer to Laurel and Sarah’s schools. If she loses her scholarship then that won’t happen. Quite aside from the fact that a bigger apartment would mean her own room, Laurel doesn’t want to disappoint her parents.

“Hm? I shouldn’t think so,” said Ms Callahan. “I try not to make a habit of punishing victims.”

Laurel hadn’t actual thought of it that way before and she’s not entirely comfortable with the word. ‘Victim’ brings to mind the crimes that her father investigates – people who have been so badly hurt (or worse) that they need the police to help them. She has trouble framing herself as the kind of person who needs that kind of aid – or Ryan as the kind of person who could be arrested.

Which is her father’s cue to walk into the nurse’s office. In a single glance he takes in her face, the hovering nurse, the serious principal and how Ollie’s hand is clasped around her own so firmly that their knuckles are turning white.

“What the hell is going on here?” he snarls more angry than Laurel has ever seen him.

The combined efforts of the nurse and the principal fail to soothe her father’s rage – their explanations only seem to make his angrier. Even Oliver’s cowed, shrinking back. Which is when Laurel (tired, scared, miserable, hurt) starts crying again.

Under any other circumstances it might be comical the way that Oliver backs away when confronted with her father’s approach, but all really she wants is a hug so she buries her face in her dad’s chest and hopes the rest of the world will leave her alone. She’s not going to be that lucky but after the morning she’s had it’s nice to be able to let her father deal with the school while she cries and he rubs her back.

“Has someone taken pictures?” her dad asks.

A pause fills the room and there’s a slight shifting of air. Laurel turns her head so she can see the room at large and not just the blue wall of her dad’s shirt. Ollie wiggles his fingers at her even though she lacks the energy to anything other than look at him.

“Pictures?” says Ms Callahan.

“Of her face. For evidence.” Laurel draws back from her dad and he lets her though he doesn’t look down to see her indignant expression.

“You’ll be pressing charges, then?” Ms Callahan’s voice has taken on an odd note.

“Battery is still a crime in this country.” His shoulders are set at a tight angle and he doesn’t raise his voice but somehow he sounds angrier than when he was shouting.

“Ryan Bensen is _sixteen_ years old. This could ruin is life.”

“Laurel is _fourteen_. What if she’d hit her head when she fell? What if she hadn’t pushed him off her? This boy needs to learn now that he can’t treat people – women – like they’re his personal punching bag.”

Shivering Laurel pulls right back from him horrified. She hadn’t thought about it that way before – she was lucky then.

The principal’s eyes are narrowed but the nurse’s lips are curved upwards at the corners. 

“Never mind,” says Laurel’s father. “We’ll get them done down at the station later.” Startled at the implication, Laurel can’t help but wonder exactly what is going on and how her day has come to this to point.

-x-x-x-

“I’m sorry,” Laurel tells her dad as they drive through the suburb the school is in and towards the area they live where the family’s doctor’s surgery is situated. “I shouldn’t have cut class with Ryan.”

She still hasn’t seen her face even with the rear view mirror tempting her to tilt it her way and see the marks Ryan has left behind. Sitting on her hands is one way to keep from giving in to temptation. So is looking straight ahead out the windscreen. If she concentrates hard enough on the weather she can almost forget what happened for stretches of whole seconds at a time.

Her dad has been quiet on the trip to the doctors which is making Laurel more worried even than she was before. She’d expected a lecture about her choices in boyfriend, about cutting class, about fighting. All of these things he had argued with her or Sarah before but so far none had been forthcoming and she was beginning to wonder if he was so furious he didn’t know where to start.

With a sharp turn her father pulls over to the side of the road. Laurel cringes in her seat waiting for the explosion.

“Laurel.” His tone lacks the anger she’d been imagining so she flicks a look at him. He’s not angry at all – worried.

“This isn’t your fault. Maybe you shouldn’t have cut class but you didn’t deserve to have this happen.”

“I started the fight by pushing him.” She feels compelled to point out.

“You were defending yourself,” he says firmly.

This feels like everyone is taking this way too seriously. Because yeah it’s horrible but it’s not like…well she’s not sure what it’s not like. Ryan might have hit her, but…

“I don’t understand. When Sarah cut class you grounded her.” Straight home after school, no phone, no tv, no stereo. Of course there’s nearly three hours between the time when school finishes and the time when their parents get home so Sarah was able to break all those rules without fear of being caught. 

“Do you want me to ground you?” her dad asks with a note of irritation creeping into his tone.

Laurel thinks that statement over. She kind of thinks it’s a little unfair but she really doesn’t want to be grounded. “Well, no,” she says.

Her dad nods. “Right.” His frown is pulling deep wrinkles in his forehead. “Just so we’re clear, Laurel. If anyone hits you – for any reason – I want you to remember that _it’s not your fault_. Do you understand?”

She rolls her shoulders uncomfortably. “Yes, Dad. Are we going to the doctor now?”

With a sigh her dad directs the car back into traffic.

-x-x-x-


	5. Chapter 5

-x-x-x-

On Monday Tommy meets her by her locker when she arrives at school. He’s leaning against Lena Owen’s locker, tapping his foot and rapping out a staccato with his knuckles on the hollow metal. Laurel is neither early nor late so there’s a reasonable amount of people around – most of whom have stared and then started whispering as Laurel walked past. She’s beginning to feel worn and anxious.

“Come to stare?” she snaps. This morning she woke up early just so she could spend extra time carefully covering up the marks. Over the weekend her lips has heeled a little, but the bruise is even more livid, stretching across her cheek bone.

Tommy shakes his head, but his eyes linger over her injuries. “Oliver told me to stay with you until he arrives.”

A number of things spring to mind that she could say, like ‘I don’t need a body guard’ or ‘do you always do what Oliver says?'. She goes with, “Ryan’s been expelled. I’m fine.”

Laurel’s not meant to know that Ryan was asked not to return to school. But when her father took her to the police station to give a witness statement – he’s making her press charges and take out a restraining order – she heard him talking with some of the other cops about it.

“I know,” says Tommy.

Laurel slams her locker with her books for the morning under one arm. “Everyone knows.” She’d been called by a number of friends over the weekend looking for confirmation of what happened. After the first couple she refused to say anything and then refused to come to the phone unless it was Erica or Melissa.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Tommy look down at his feet for a second. “Yeah,” he says.

“You stupid bitch!”

Laurel blinks in surprise as much as fear as Taylor Murray – Ryan’s best friend – steps in front of her and Tommy. They stop and beside her Laurel feels Tommy go tense.

“Sorry?” says Laurel, her own heart pounding in her ears.

“It’s because of you that Ryan’s been kicked out – that he might end up going to jail. If you’re kept your mouth shut it’d be fine.” Taylor is a junior and towers over both Tommy and Laurel, neither of who are particularly large and the aura of menace he projects frightens her.

“If Ryan wanted to stay in school then he shouldn’t have hit Laurel.” Tommy is and always has been somewhat fearless when dealing with anyone he doesn’t like. His shoulders are set back and he looks directly at Taylor with an offer of challenge.

Taylor’s nostrils flare but before he can get anything out a new voice enters the conversation.

“Is there a problem here?” Ms Jordan asks, eyes flickering over the three students and resting briefly on Laurel’s face.

“No problem,” Taylor grunts, making a quick exit.

“Laurel?” the teacher asks.

“It’s fine, Ms Jordan.”

As soon as she is gone Erica materializes next to Laurel. “What was that all about?” she asks keeping pace with the other two as they head for the girls’ homeroom.

“Taylor,” mutters Tommy not looking up.

“Ah.” But neither of them comment further which leaves Laurel wondering exactly what she missed by not picking up the phone on Sunday.

They make it to Laurel and Erica’s homeroom without further incident, though Laurel is very aware of the stares and whispers that are following them through the halls. The two girls sit at their usual table while Tommy brings a chair around to join them.

“I don’t need a bodyguard.” 

“Well you get one anyway.” Tommy’s gaze flickers to the door and nods in greeting.

Laurel turns to find Oliver weaving his way through the pattern of tables to the three of them. She rolls her eyes at him. “Seriously?”

Oliver beams at her. “Hey Laurel.” He grabs another chair and pulls it over the Laurel and Erica’s table. “Hey Erica.”

“I don’t need Tommy to be my bodyguard,” she tells Oliver directly.

“He’s not your bodyguard.” Oliver smirks at her his eyebrows rising.

“What is he, then?” Laurel folds her arms across her chest.

“Decoration?”

“Hey!” Tommy is indignant.

Beside her Erica is having a silent fit of laughter and Laurel decides she clearly needs a new best friend. Poking her in the arm she glares at Oliver whose grin slips off his face after a second and he shifts in his seat. Triumphant Laurel sits back with a smile but as soon as she does Oliver picks up on it and he’s back smirking at her.

Laurel and Erica’s homeroom teacher, Mrs. Bennett, interrupts any further power plays. “Tommy, Oliver. Given that there is less than a minute to the bell I suggest you find where you’re meant to be and go _there_.” When neither moves for a second her gaze narrows. “Now.”

With a groan both boys retrieve their books and stand. “See you at lunch, Laurel,” says Oliver who saunters off without waiting for her indignant response (not that she actually minds that much – she kind of does want to sit with him at lunch).

“Hey Tommy,” Laurel says and waits until he looks back at her. “Thanks.”

He blushes a little and flaps a hand at her in acknowledgement before the bell rings and both boys dash for their own classes.

-x-x-x-

Oliver catches her bus home with her. She can’t decide if his conscientiousness is annoying or not. Between him and Erica organizing a detail of her friends she’s not been alone all day though she’s been challenged by Ryan’s friends – all of whom are older and bigger than herself (and her friends) – but have been cautious about approaching her when she’s surrounded by witnesses.

Of course that hasn’t stopped them spreading rumors through the school and she’s been met by more than one lewd glance or snicker when entering a room. The worst part has been the names which have not been said to her face but she’s aware of people whispering as she walks about the school; and a couple of brave souls have dropped notes with them written in on her desk.

She spends most of the first ten minutes of third period crying in the bathroom with Melissa trying to comfort her through the stall door until someone comes looking for them after they’re missed. Apparently even the teachers aren’t allowed to leave her alone.

So despite being suffocating she is kind of grateful to Oliver and Erica for organizing what her friends are referring to as her ‘security detail’. Tommy even earnestly explained it to their English teacher when he insisted that they had to be partners though both their regular partners were present. Mr. Jamieson listened with a scowl to the explanation but allowed the swap.

Now, Oliver is holding her hand – she’s not sure how that came about but despite the fact she can barely feel it through their gloves she feels like there’s a conduit of heat between them running warmth up her arm and suffusing her body. He’s chattering at her about the bus because it’s the first he’s been on outside of field trips and the experience seems to have fascinated and repulsed him. 

Laurel is grinning at his reaction when Ryan appears in their path.

Oliver, attention focused on Laurel, doesn’t notice until her halted motion tugs him to a stop. As soon as he notices Ryan however, he dives at the older boy.

Instinctively Laurel tightens her own grip on Oliver’s hand. “Ollie, don’t!” She pulls him back hard enough that he stumbles, tripping over his own feet.

He tries to free his hand. “Laurel…” But she just holds on tighter.

Ryan comes closer, stopping just out of range of Oliver. “I should have known you’d be with someone else.”

With that Laurel has had enough of the name calling and the rumors – not to mention the stress and the fear. Ryan isn’t meant to be within a hundred feet of her, but here he is standing there like he has the right to break the law. In only a split second decision Laurel pushes Oliver away and stalks over to the gloating Ryan. Before either boy can react she kicks him in the shins and then punches him in the face.

“Leave me alone!”

He lashes out but Laurel is already out of range and dragging a startled Oliver behind her running for her apartment block. They don’t stop until they’re in elevator going up to her family’s apartment.

“That was amazing,” Oliver tells her.

Laurel nods, a little stunned at her own actions. “Yeah. Hurts though.” There’s a stabbing pain in the knuckle of her right middle finger and a dull ache in her toes. She flexes her hand. “Quite a lot.”

She’s proud of herself for not crying even though that’s what she really wants to do.

Inside her family’s apartment Oliver heads straight for the freezer and the family’s ice pack while Laurel collapses on the couch and kicks off her shoes to examine her foot – her finger is already starting to swell. Maybe she shouldn’t have hit (or kicked) Ryan but it felt good to do so after all the fright and misery he’d caused her. Plus she is sure her dad will think she made the right choice when he hears what happened.

Which reminds her that she should call him so while Ollie is fussing about the best place to put the ice pack on her she phones her dad’s personal line. He’s upset when she explains why she’s calling and promises to send someone over to make sure Ryan is gone and take statements from her and Oliver. She did the right thing, he assures her, by getting as far away from Ryan as possible.

A few tears escape as she hangs up the phone and she leans her head on Oliver’s shoulder. “Thanks, Ollie.”

“What for?” he asks.

“Being my friend.” She sniffles a little but doesn’t want to go and find a tissue. When he takes her good hand in his she marvels at the way it feels so much better when there are no gloves between them.

Laurel tilts her head up to look into his face and he looks down at hers smiling. “Thanks for being mine.”

A knock interrupts them and Laurel goes to open the door – after carefully checking who’s on the other side. The uniformed officer tells her there is no sign of Ryan outside and she scribbles down everything that Laurel and Oliver tell her about the encounter, even the stuff that Ollie tells her about his friends hassling her all day at school. The only comment Officer Coleman makes is to tell Laurel she did the right thing by getting away as fast as she could.

As she leaves Officer Coleman tells Laurel to make sure to lock the door behind her carefully and recommends that Oliver stays until her father gets home so she’s not alone. Ollie nods solemnly and promises he’s not planning on going anywhere. The officer’s eyes twinkle a little as she says goodbye and heads off to do another sweep of the neighborhood. 

The door is locked Laurel heads back to the couch. She has a heap of homework she knows she should start on but it’s too nice sitting with Oliver for her to be motivated. He’ll probably be kicked out once her parents get home so she can start her assignments then but in the meantime she and Ollie can just talk.

For a few moments that is certainly all they do. Then, right in the middle of Oliver telling her about the lecture he’d received from his algebra teacher when it finally came to light he hadn’t done any homework all semester, without any warning – even to herself – she leans over and kisses him. Just very briefly because he jumps back in surprise a couple of seconds after her lips touch his.

“I’m sorry.” She feels heat rushing to her cheeks and tears prickling at the back of her eyes. “I know you’re with Tina. I shouldn’t have done that.”

Oliver catches her arm before she can stand up and move away. “It’s okay.” And before she can protest that it _really isn’t_ he leans over and kisses her.

Laurel remembers why she likes kissing Oliver so much – it warms her right through, makes her heart beat faster and her skin tingle. She feels as if she could keep doing this forever but given they’re sitting on the couch in the living room it is inevitable that they will be interrupted sooner or later.

“Are you _kidding_ me?”

They jerk apart to see Sarah standing in the main passage. Her dark hair is a mess, her bag dragging behind her and her uniform is crumpled – which is about normal for Sarah who seems to take great pride at being as untidy as she can in her school clothes. Her face is flushed and scowling.

“You two are like… _God_ I don’t even know!” She spins on one foot and stomps off to the room she and Laurel share (and Laurel gives a mental ‘thank you’ that they’re moving to a larger apartment soon). The door slams behind her with a loud crash that shakes the walls.

Laurel rolls her eyes.

“Is she always so…dramatic?” Oliver asks.

“Oh yeah,” says Laurel. “But she doesn’t narc on me anymore so that’s good.”

Oliver grins and leans forward, stopping when Laurel puts a hand on his chest. “What about Tina?”

“What about Tina?” he throws back. “I like you better.”

“Shouldn’t you break up with her first?” Firsthand experience has taught Laurel just how horrible it is to find out your boyfriend is dating someone else without him breaking up with you. She and Tina are even kind of friends. Sort of. Laurel doesn’t want to hurt her.

“I will. Later.” He leans forward again only to be stopped.

“Before school tomorrow?”

Oliver huffs and looks up to the ceiling. “Before school.”

This time she doesn’t prevent him from kissing her, she even meets him halfway.

-x-x-x-

“What the hell is going on here?”

Simultaneously Laurel tries to sit up and Oliver jumps to his feet. Only, his feet get tangled and he tumbles to the floor narrowly avoiding hitting his head on the coffee table.

“Um, hi dad!” she says her eyes wide as she tries to pretend that a clumsy Oliver isn’t climbing to his feet slowly and that they weren’t just making out on the couch.

Her dad doesn’t even begin to buy it. With narrowed eyes he takes in the teens before centering his glare on Oliver. “You. Out.”

“Yes, sir.” Oliver doesn’t even bother to put on his coat just grabs his things and makes a dash for the door. “Bye, Laurel.”

Laurel waits until the door shuts before looking back her dad. His eyes are closed and his lips are moving silently which is exactly the reaction he had when the middle school called to say Sarah had been cutting class. He opens his eyes and looks down at her expressionlessly. “Care to explain what’s going on here, Laurel?” he bites out.

No, not really, but that’s not an answer her dad is going to accept. “Uh, Oliver and I are getting back together.” Well they didn’t actually didn’t discuss that exactly but he did say he was going to break up with Tina so she’s guessing it means they will be dating again. Despite the anger written across her dad’s expression she can’t help feeling just a little bit happy. She’d forgotten how much she enjoyed spending time with Oliver.

He drops into his favourite chair and watches her for a second. Uncomfortable, Laurel squirms on her spot and wonders if mentioning homework will get her out of a lecture.

“Given what happened on Friday do you really think that is the best choice?” the question is spoken in a softer tone than she expected – the same one he’s been using on her for days. “Maybe you should wait a while.”

Laurel’s own eyes narrow. “Ollie isn’t going to hurt me.” She can’t explain why she feels safe with Oliver – or safer at any rate – why she’s willing to do things with him that she wasn’t willing to do with Ryan.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says. He draws in a slow breath and seems to mull over his words for a minute. “I just don’t want you to rush into anything because you’re…confused.”

“I’m not confused.” Laurel wonders what could possibly be confusing – aside from her father.

“Just be careful, all right. I don’t want you to get hurt again.”

“I’ll be careful,” Laurel agrees in the hopes that this conversation is over. “Can I go do my homework now?”

-x-x-x-

Laurel has only just sat down at her desk and pulled out her geometry when Sarah looks up from where she’s painting her finger nails on her comforter and not doing her homework. Nail polish is against her school’s uniform code but Sarah’s not going to let a little thing like rules stop her so Laurel doesn’t bother saying anything.

“Are you and Ollie having sex or something?” she asks.

Laurel drops her pen in surprise and then spins to face her sister. “ _What?!_ ”

“I’m just wondering. You two are like all over each other and then Dad’s using his worried voice.” Avoiding smudging the polish Sarah screws the lid on the bottle and sits up blowing on her nails so they dry quicker. They’re a pale pink and truthfully might not even be noticed if she doesn’t wave her hands around too much.

“I’m not having sex with Oliver,” Laurel says and turns back to her homework.

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Sarah shrug. “If you say so.” Even at twelve she is wickedly sarcastic and far more out spoken than even her sister.

Forcefully not grinding her teeth Laurel tries to concentrate on applying Pythagoras’ theorem to each triangle. 

-x-x-x-


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the trigger warning. Also I will be altering the numbering on the chapters a little.

TW: (consensual) underage sex, but not described in any detail 

-x-x-x-

The first time Laurel and Oliver have sex it’s his fifteenth birthday in his room, in his bed, because it seems like a good idea. The date is insignificant and his party had been the prior weekend. She did not set out to have sex with him and she’s pretty sure he didn’t intend to either. At least not then and there but it’s something that’s been building for a while and she’s more than happy to give in to what she’s feeling.

Lack of supervision is one of the reasons Laurel’s parents really dislike her spending time at Oliver’s. Laurel mostly likes that there’s no one to walk in on them. Except that one time with Thea when they’d both been shirtless – luckily she was young enough to be convinced not to tell anyone what she’d seen without a bribe.

The actual act is awkward and uncomfortable and leaves Laurel feeling hollow. When it’s done she sits up and pulls on her clothes, holding back tears. “I want to go home now.”

All the warmth and intimacy she’d felt has evaporated. As she puts her socks on she’s surprised to find that her hands aren’t shaking from force that her heart is beating. Behind her she hears Ollie sit up and a second later his hand touches her shoulder. She freezes but doesn’t jerk away.

“You don’t have to go.” His voice trembles a little and she looks back at him.

“I just really want to.”

“Laurel…”

“Please Ollie, I want to go home.”

He nods and slides out of bed grabbing his clothes. As he does so Laurel tidies her hair in the mirror and concentrates at not seeing him reflected behind her shooting confused and hurt glances in her direction. Once she’s done she turns to find him dressed and ready, eyes expressionless and lips pull into a thin line.

She follows him along the corridor to his father’s office where Robert Queen is sitting glaring at his computer and hitting the keys harder than is probably necessary. When he sees them standing in the door, though, he relaxes and smiles. “Oliver, Laurel what can I do for you?”

“Can Laurel have a ride home?” Oliver asks. His tone sounds normal but something must given them away because his father gives them a sharp glance leaning forward so he can see them clearer.

“Is everything all right?”

Oliver’s voice seems to fail him so Laurel forces a smile and speaks up. “Everything’s fine, Mr. Queen. I’ve just got a lot of homework I have to get done, that’s all.”

If he spots the lie – it’s only Saturday afternoon – he doesn’t give any sign. He calmly arranges to have someone drop her off and asks Oliver if he’s going with her to which both answer in the negative. And no one says anything more about it.

“Happy Birthday, Ollie,” she says as the driver pulls the door open for her a few minutes later.

He doesn’t answer.

-x-x-x-

The night that Laurel and Oliver had gotten back together her mother had sat her down and explained in detail why it’s important to use contraception. She’d then gone on to explain that Laurel should wait until she was absolutely sure was ready. The point had been laboured until Laurel had rolled her eyes and promised. Condoms. The Pill. Wait until you’re ready. Yes, Mom. _Please shut up now._

The conversation ranks as Laurel most embarrassing one ever – a list that includes the one she finds out that Sarah was with Oliver when _The Queen’s Gambit_ went down (which is more tragic than anything) and every single conversation she has about Oliver or Tommy with the other when the former returns supposedly from the dead.

But as she sits at her desk with her history book open in front of her she is absurdly glad for the first half of the conversation: at least she knows she won’t get pregnant – which would probably be the end of the world. She just wishes that she’d listened to the second part and not gone through with it at all.

Of course the problem is that she’d felt ready. Sex wasn’t something that Oliver had pressured her into or her him. At the time it’d just seemed like a natural progression in their relationship. Only now she regrets letting him get that far. 

Sarah sticks her head around the door and holds the phone out. Lost in contemplation Laurel hadn’t even heard it ring. “It’s Ollie.”

“I’m busy!” she bends her head back over her book.

Sarah snorts. “Whatever.” But she duly passes on the message.

-x-x-x-

By chance Laurel sleeps late the next morning and by the time she wakes – to the sound of the phone ringing – Sarah is already up and gone out for a day with friends. She knows – even before her mom knocks on the door that it’s Oliver on the phone.

Sliding out from under the covers she winces a little at an unfamiliar twinge but it’s nothing compared to the pounding of her head. She opens the door and accepts the phone from her mom.

“Laurel, are you all right?” is the first thing Oliver says to her.

“I’m fine,” she says.

“Are you mad at me?” he asks.

“No,” she says. She’s not. The person she is mad at is herself.

“Do you want to get together later? We could do homework – if you haven’t done it all already?” he sounds hopeful but strained.

“I think we should break up.” The person who says those words is not her even if she uses her mouth and her voice. The real Laurel is panicking at what she’s just said but the person speaking is calm and direct. The effect only lasts for a heart beat or two but by the time Laurel is back in control of her words it’s too late to take them back and she’s not sure how to say it anyway. “I’m sorry, Ollie,” she says instead.

He doesn’t reply and after a second there’s the click of the line disengaging. Laurel ends the call and just stares at the cordless receiver for long moments until it blurs.

“Laurel, sweetheart, what’s wrong?” Firm warm arms wrap around her shoulders and Laurel buries her face in her mother’s neck.

“I broke up with Oliver!” she sobs.

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” Her mom rubs her back.

“It’s not!”

“Hey.” Her mom pulls back and gently cups Laurel’s face with her hands after tucking a cleaning rag into the waistband of her jeans. She wipes the tears off Laurel’s face. “I know it doesn’t really feel like it right now, but it will be okay.”

Laurel doesn’t believe her but she nods anyway.

“Come on, let’s get you some breakfast.”

Her dad’s in the kitchen wiping down the stove but any questions he might have about Laurel’s obviously miserable state are hushed over by her mother who sets about fixing her breakfast: cornflakes and toast with a glass of apple juice. Laurel eats while listening to them bicker about whether the fridge needs fixing or replacing and can they really afford either if they’re moving in August?

-x-x-x-

Erica’s the only person she tells and Erica is sworn to secrecy. But Laurel holds her breath because surely people can tell just by looking at her?

But the only gossip circling on Monday is that Oliver Queen and Laurel Lance have broken up. There’s plenty of speculation as to why but no one manages to hit on the truth.

By chance she and Oliver pass each other twice in the hall. Both times her turns away from her and she can’t quite help feeling the cut. In English he doesn’t sit beside her and it’s like being punched in the gut. She knows that when you break up you’re not supposed to stay friends they certainly didn’t the first time (at first anyway) but he’s still one of her favourite people.

“Do you think Tommy knows?” Laurel is meant to be studying for chem but keeps losing her train of thought.

“Hmm?” Erica looks up from her novel study which is overdue. “About what?”

“You know.” They’re in the library after school, so are forced to keep their voices down. Still Laurel can’t help looking around to see if anyone has overheard and somehow gleaned what they’re talking about.

Erica shrugs. “Don’t know.”

“He keeps glaring at me.” But he seems to be keeping quiet if he does know and Laurel isn’t about to go and ask him what Oliver has said.

-x-x-x-

On Tuesday Laurel is asked out twice.

The first is Carter Bowen. Which. Eww. No. He’s an utter jerk and she’s pretty sure he’s only asking her out to piss off Oliver.

The second is Ashwin Kerr who she might have said yes to if she wasn’t feeling so miserable.

-x-x-x-

In English on Wednesday she passes a note to Oliver that took her the better part of an hour to get right. It’s written in her neatest handwriting on unadorned lined paper. She’d tossed the one with hearts and the one with smiley faces and all her letter writing stationary has either kittens or flowers on it. This is simple and she hopes it’s enough because she couldn’t find a way to say anything else without revealing too much of what happened between them.

I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.

Oliver spends most of the lesson staring at the note while she watches covertly. But he doesn’t look in her direction and he leaves class without talking to her.

He isn’t at lunch.

After school she can’t find him.

Laurel gets asked out by Robbie Black. She doesn’t like him much more than she likes Carter.

-x-x-x-

Oliver seems to have disappeared on Thursday but they don’t have English so maybe she’s just missing him. Still she looks every free moment that she can spare and doesn’t see him. She wonders if he’s unwell but she does manage to track down Tommy who confirms Oliver’s at school. His glower isn’t quite as dark today.

After school he’s the one that finds her. Mr. Stein keeps her behind to discuss an extra credit project that’s part of her scholarship requirements so by the time she leaves the corridors are mostly empty. Except for Oliver waiting calmly by her locker.

Immediately she stomach starts to twist and her heart starts pounding. “Hey Ollie,” she says when she’s close enough and then pretends to concentrate on spinning the combination and putting her books away.

“Okay.”

Laurel turns and stares at him. “Okay?”

“I forgive you.” His expression is solemn his eyes fixed on her face.

Mulling this over, she nods. “Thank you.”

“Do you want to get back together?” His words trip over themselves in a rush to get out and there’s a faint blush spreading up and across his cheeks.

“Yes,” she speaks before she has a chance to think about it but even if she had she would’ve said the same thing.

His smile is chased by the sun and it lifts a weight off her shoulders that Laurel hadn’t been aware she was carrying. Without a second thought she throws herself in his arm hugging him tight and enjoying when his returning embrace is just as firm.

“I love you.”

Laurel jerks back from the words, shocked. Her mouth is dry and she swallows. “Ollie…”

He’s blushing again and biting his lips but after a second, or possibly a thousand years, he takes a deep breath. “I mean it. I really do.”

“I love you too, Ollie.” Once again the words slip out without thought or regret.

“Really?”

Laurel bobs her head up and down. “Yeah.” She kisses him.

This time when they break apart they’re both smiling.

-x-x-x-

They spend the afternoon sitting cross legged on the floor of the Queen’s living room making paper planes with Thea. When they’re done they stand on the landing and throw them across the foyer while a giggling, socked five year old chases after them.

-x-x-x-


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. I am having trouble with MSOffice (TL;DR, my misadventures with customer service) and so am stuck with Open Office whose spellchecher isn't so great. I apologise for any mistakes I've made, though I've run it through an online checker as well.
> 
> Also important to note that this chapter was once two but I ruthlessly hacked them to pieces and put them together. I'm happier with it now than I was and it's about 25% shorter with 80% of the dialogue scrubbed away.

-x-x-x-

“You were expelled!” Laurel can hear the hysteria in her own voice but she does nothing to stem it. She’s already had this exact same conversation with Erica but instead of stony silence she ended up being a shoulder for her friend to cry on about the whole ordeal – though it may end up being the last time they ever talk.

In one swoop Oliver, Erica, Melissa, Tommy and a couple of others in their wider circle of friends have all received the same punishment. Which is hardly surprising as they were “…caught using drugs on school property!” 

“I know, Laurel. I was there.”

“Do you really know what’s going to happen?” She’s gradually working her way up into a righteous fury over the incident. They’re all stupid, completely stupid and now she’s not going to have any friends left at school. No friends. No boyfriend. With two and a half years of school left the prospect seems very lonely.

Laurel has a week’s detention because she knew what they’d planned – even if she’d refused to participate. She’s been warned that if anything like this happens again she will lose her position as sophomore class president. Thankfully none of it will affect her scholarship though that will change if they find any sign that she has taken participated in the same experiment as her friends (which they won’t, because she didn’t).

“My mom and dad say I’m not allowed to see you anymore,” she tells him. Her voice breaks a little towards the end of the sentence, tears starting to well again and she clenches her fist so tightly that she feels her nails bite into her palm. It's not just him, though, it's all of them.

“What?” he says. “Laurel, you can’t…”

Actually what Laurel can’t do is continue this conversation. She’s argued with her parents about this, tried every trick she can think of to convince them. Sarah’s put her two cents in to say she doesn’t think Oliver’s an actual drug addict or anything. Not that Laurel found her sister’s input terribly helpful but the backing from an unexpected quarter was appreciated.

“I’m sorry.” Laurel ends the call and flops back on her bed.

The phone rings and she sits up, answering almost instinctively. “Hello?” She can hear the thickness in her own voice and hopes that it isn’t apparent across the phone line.

“Laurel…”

She doesn’t answer him. For several seconds they both sit in silence until she ends the call again. When he calls back a second time she doesn’t answer. There is no third time.

-x-x-x-

School is lonely without her closest circle of friends. She’s never alone, despite the rumours that get passed about her (again), but Laurel's too heartsick to let anyone too close. Without hesitation she refuses any of the guys who ask her out.

To best erase what happened the school quickly admits several students to take the places of those thrown out. As Sophomore Class President, Laurel is the one who is assigned to give them a tour of school and show them where their classes are and introduce them to her follow classmates. The only acknowledgement for her part in the scandal is when she quietly warned by the Deputy Principal that she’s not to gossip to the new kids.

For her part Laurel does her job and nothing more. She’s not going to make nice with the people who are taking her friends’ places, certainly not to gossip. But by the third one she is helping them examine their schedules, giving them tips about teachers and suggesting clubs they might be interested in joining. The change of heart is brought about when she notices that all of them are wearing identical expressions of nervousness, reminding her of her own friends, all attending new schools.

She still draws the line at being friends with them.

Though she’s in for a surprise when she arrives at the school reception to meet the final new student. “Sam?”

A short girl in a neatly pressed uniform, long black hair pulled into a tight pony, spins around and stares. “Laurel?” she seems surprised. “Oh my god. I didn’t know you went here.”

The first bell is due to ring in a little under ten minutes so when the two girls enter the hall there’s plenty of other students milling about talking as they prepare for their morning classes. Several call friendly greetings to Laurel as they pass by and she answers most of them with a smile and wave.

“What’s your locker number?” she asks.

“Um.” Sam fishes in her bag and pulls out a brand new notebook, flipping it open to the first page. Laurel recognizes the ‘cheat sheet’ of information handed out to all new students. “471.”

Oliver’s old locker. Laurel is wearing her hair out today so she flicks it over her shoulder.“Sure, this way.”

Ashwin Kerr’s locker is 474 and he and his best friend, James Malane, are lounging beside it as Laurel leads Sam over. “Hey Ash. Hey James.” But any further introductions are cut off by the bell and the two boys hurry off to make homeroom in time. Laurel is granted time off class to show new students around so she doesn’t bother to hurry Sam along at all, just waves when Ashwin says he’ll see her at lunch.

By the time she’s finished with the tour it’s five minutes into first period. Laurel delivers Sam into the care of the French teacher, promises to find her at lunch and heads to her own class. She’s glad for the chance to have Sam at school with her and reconsidering just how attractive Ashwin really is, so gets very little done despite her English teacher’s best attempt.

-x-x-x-

Sam isn’t very much like Erica or very like Laurel for that matter. Physics is her favourite subject with math coming a close second and she can easily outstrip Laurel who prefers the humanities and social sciences. Laurel is outgoing and opinionated, used to being listened to by her peers and to a certain extent her teachers. Sam is quiet and retiring, seemingly surprised when people treat her as anything other than Laurel’s shadow.

“Everyone likes you,” she breathes to Laurel nearly three weeks into school.

Laurel snorts and rolls her eyes. “No, they don’t.” Aja hates her guts and is determined to rub Oliver’s expulsion in her face, then there’s Ryan’s friends still around in the higher grades and that’s just the ones she knows about.

“Okay. Not everyone.” Sam’s eyes flicker sideways as Taylor Murray passes by them with his girlfriend. “But most people. At my old school hardly anyone knew who I was but here I’m ‘Laurel Lance’s Friend’. It’s weird, good weird, but weird. Ashwin likes you most of all.” The final sentence tumbles out so quickly that it takes Laurel a second to decipher it.

Laurel shrugs her shoulders and thinks about what that would be like because Ashwin has already asked her out before and she’s turned him down. Now though, if he asked, she’d probably say yes. “Maybe.”

“Do you think someone will ask me out?”

“Maybe. What about Kyle Abrams?” Laurel smirks knowing the reaction before it happens.

“Eww, no. Anyone else.”

“He’s not that bad,” she says mildly. There are worse people out there than Kyle, Laurel knows, with his unwashed blond hair and fanatical interest in soccer. But if Sam doesn’t unwrinkled her nose soon it’s going to leave lines. “What about James?”

“What?” Sam says as James and Ashwin arrive.

“Hey Laurel, can I speak to Sam for a second?” James asks, shifting from one foot to another.

“Sure.” She tugs Ashwin by the elbow so that they’re just around the corner but out of earshot. Ashwin slumps against the wall next to a drinking fountain. Laurel combs her fingers through her hair and then gives her head a little shake to resettle it.

“Hey, are you and Oliver Queen still a thing?”

Laurel’s caught off guard. “No.” She hasn’t spoken to Oliver since that final phone call though he sent her a handful of emails since then about half of which are because he still includes her in any mass messages or chain letters. The other half she prints off at school and hides in the back of her wardrobe.

She hasn’t emailed him back because she’s not sure what to say.

“Oh. Do you want to hang out sometime, then?”

Her mother has told her if she keeps rolling her eyes so much they’re going to roll out of her head so Laurel manages to restrain herself when it occurs to her that she might have been set up just as much as Sam. Still it doesn’t take more than a few seconds for nervous delight to take the place of fond exasperation. “Sure.”

“Friday?”

“Friday’s good.” She can't quite help the smile though if she's a little uncertain about her choice. 

Sam rounds the corner only to stop abruptly when she sees how close Laurel and Ashwin are standing to one another. “Yikes! Sorry!” she covers her eyes with her hand and then starts backing away only to bump into James who’s about two steps behind her.

-x-x-x-

Sam and James are together for three months and their split is amicable enough with neither upset nor bitter when both start dating someone else soon afterwards. “Don’t tell my mom,” Sam says. “She already thinks my grades are dropping.” Laurel promises to keep it to herself.

Ashwin is not Oliver. He’s quieter, kinder and more focused on his school work. When he sees her he smiles and his shine just a little. He tells her he loves her and she returns the sentiment though she’s not sure is she _does_ love him back. ‘He’s a great guy,’ she tells herself only to answer back with, ‘but…’ she’s not sure how to finish that only there is something that doesn’t quite work for her.

And it’s while she’s pondering this one Monday afternoon that she’s clearing out the mailbox for her family to find one addressed to her. Pleased, she opens it quickly for her stomach to drop when she sees what’s inside; not because it’s bad, but because it’s something she’s never going to be allowed.

An invitation to Tommy’s sixteenth birthday.

More than anything she’d like to respond and say she’ll be there (just try and stop her!) but there’s no way her parents will let her attend this party. They don’t like her going to parties where the hosts haven’t been expelled for drug use on school property.

Bitterness knifes her but she tucks the invitation inside her binder so she can find a way around her parents. Surely she can come up with an argument that will persuade her dad to let her go to the party and see her friends; her mom might be easier to get around but she has been unexpectedly firm on the subject.

For three days she carries the invitation around with her, frequently taking it out to look at it and try to frame the arguments in her head so she’s ready for her parents. All around people are talking about the party – Laurel’s the not the only one who could be counted in their crowd after all. Many of her fellow classmates have been forbidden from going (of course according to them that’s not a hurdle) but a number will be attending.

Among them is Ashwin whose parents move in similar circles to Malcolm Merlyn. He claims he won’t go unless Laurel does but she persuades him otherwise because if she can’t get there at least she’ll get some vicarious enjoyment out of him. 

As Sam and Ashwin begin to argue out the details – he's promised to take her if Laurel can't go – Laurel’s stomach twists because this is her opportunity to see the friends she hasn’t seen in months. Erica, Tommy, Melissa… _Oliver_. A frown creasing her forehead Laurel banishes her ex-boyfriend from her mind as her current one lays his hand over hers, resting on the table. He’s leaning forward to continue his bickering with Sam.

His skin is warm and tingly against hers. She tilts her head over and kisses him on the cheek.

-x-x-x-

Of course she's forbidden to attend. As she slams the door to her bedroom she wonders why she bothered to ask.

-x-x-x-

While Laurel has done plenty of things she knows her parents would disapprove of, she’s never been big on actively doing something they’ve told her not to do. That might change yet.

Or not.

The RSVP date passes and the following day Laurel resigns herself to not going to the party. She ignores most of the talk of outfits and dates and all the trappings that go along with it. With her blessing, Sam is hugely excited as her own date will be attending and she doesn’t need to tag along with Ashwin. Laurel forces a smile whenever the topic comes up and reminds her friend to remember as many details as possible.

On a Saturday a week before Tommy’s birthday she’s at work as usual when she gets a surprise visitor. Most of her friends can’t understand why she has a job but the extra money – combined the wicked staff discounts – mean she can keep up with her friends sartorial tastes in a way she would not have been able to do so otherwise.

So when she’s folding the clothes and minding the cash register, while her boss is at lunch, it isn’t that much of a surprise to have someone come in and call her by name. It’s the particular voice that makes her jump and spin around.

“Oliver?” 

“Hey.” He’s standing by a rack of light spring jackets – one of which Laurel is hoping to add to her own collection. With a thumb hooked through a belt loop and sun glasses dangling from one hand he’s a study of complacency, but his brow is furrowed and the set of his lips too firm.

“What are you doing here?” A fluttering in her stomach is accompanied a shiver down her spine. Either she’s forgotten how good he looks or he’s improved. He’s nowhere near his adult height and build – even the one he has prior to the island – but Oliver never did do gangly or awkward. 

His expression is intent. “You didn’t RSVP Tommy’s party.”

Feeling a little self-conscious Laurel turns her attention back to the sweater she re-hanging. “How do you know that?” There isn’t much that one knows the other doesn’t, but she doubts that Tommy had anything to do with the invitations – the blue card and flowing gold script were nothing like anything she's ever associated with Tommy – other than saying who he did and didn't want to attend.

“I asked him to check. Why aren’t you coming?”

Instead of answering the question directly Laurel tries to head him off before he can work on convincing her. “Ollie, I’m trying to work.”

His eyes scan the store but it’s empty apart from the two of them the chilly grey weather having driven most people off the unsheltered stretch of road to the malls or their own homes.

“I’ll leave if any customers come.” He frees his left hand and leans over to capture hers immediately her starts heart pounding and her stomach flutters reminding her how much she used to love him. “Why aren’t you coming to Tommy’s party?”

Laurel tugs herself free and sets about removing the two blouses that have been misplaced amongst the sweaters. They belong across the store. “My parents refuse to let me have anything to do with you, remember? Or Tommy.”

“So sneak out.”

“I’m not going to lie.” She puts the shirts back in their correct spaces and then does a scan to see if there’s anything else that needs tidying. When she can’t find anything she retreats to the cash desk hoping to put it between Oliver and herself.

He follows her over but not behind the counter giving her enough space to feel safe from her own feelings. His eyes haven’t left her face but his brow has relaxed and his lips softened. “You have to be there, Laurel.”

A retort about not having to do anything he says rises up but she holds it back instead going for something a little more wounding. “I’m with Ashwin, now.”

His weight shifts a little and for the first time he glances down. “I know. But you should still come.”

Laurel looks up in time to see her boss enter. Oliver follows her gaze before leaving with a quick goodbye.

-x-x-x-

“How can I prove I’m trustworthy enough to go to Tommy’s birthday?” she asks her dad as she stacks the dishwasher. She’s doing so without complaint – despite it being Sarah’s turn – just so she can take this opportunity.

“It’s not about you.” Her dad has just finished packing away the leftovers and is starting to rinse the dishes to hand to Laurel. “Your mom and I are just worried that those so-called friends of yours are going to get you in trouble.”

“I could have been expelled with them, you know. They wanted me to join them even after I told them to stop being idiots. I _never_ get in trouble at school. Never. I haven’t spoken to Oliver or Erica or any of my friends since you and mom told me not to. Except today when Oliver came to see me at the store to ask why I wasn’t going to the party – that is the _only_ time.” Laurel blinks, surprised at her own outburst, her breath is a little quick and her heart pounding. She’d planned on saying every word, just not in one long outburst, each main point with its own little supporting details.

“Oliver came to the store?”

“Yeah.” Laurel puts the last dish into the machine. “Dad, I just really want to see my friends. Please.”

Her father looks at her for several seconds before humming quietly to himself. “I’ll discuss it with your mom. No promises.”

-x-x-x-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, changed the chapter numbers again.


	8. Chapter 8

“You look amazing,” says Sam sitting on Laurel’s bed in the modest black dress which she talked her parents into buying for her for the evening. “Like really.”

Laurel examines herself in the mirror. She’s in peach and silver with her hair pulled back in a twist and enough make-up for it to be noticeable but not enough for it to be the first thing you notice. But the expression on her face is not a happy one so she dredges up a smile through her nerves (she’s going to see O—) but it looks forced so she lets it drop.

“Not half as amazing as you.” She meets Sam’s eyes in the mirror and this time the smile comes a little more naturally.

Sam flushes and drops her gaze. “Thanks. But not really.”

Laurel offers a hand. “Come look.” She drags her friend over to the mirror. “See. Amazing. No one will know what hit them when we walk in.”

-x-x-x-

On the ride over Ashwin is oddly nervous, his hand holding Laurel’s a touch too tight until she wriggles her fingers and he releases her. Sam and her date, Anthony, are chattering quietly about the people who are likely to attend that she’s never met. Laurel adds her own comments here and there about who’s worth meeting and who should be avoided.

Only when they’re inside and have hunted fruitlessly for Tommy does Ashwin seem to relax enough to offer to get them all drinks. Laurel hums when he asks if she has any preferences and he shrugs and wanders off to find something for them. As soon as he’s gone she returns to scanning the crowd waving and hugging people as they walk past but not joining in Sam and Anthony’s conversation.

Nowhere does she any of the faces she’s looking for – shouldn’t at least Tommy be here enjoying the attention that people would line up to heap on him? Oliver smirking at his side?

Hands cover her eyes, but avoid her carefully applied make-up. “Guess who!” It’s not the voice she’s expecting but she feels her heart soar anyway.

“Mel!” As soon as she’s released Laurel spins around and throws her arms around her friend with a shriek. The next few seconds are filled with ‘so good to see you’ and ‘you look amazing’ (though Melissa doesn’t look amazing, she’s lost weight to the point she looks gaunt, her skin is too pale even through make-up and her eyes are glazed).

“We’re upstairs. Come and say hi. Everyone misses you.”

Sam’s watching the proceedings with wide eyes that beg Laurel not to leave her with only Anthony. Laurel grabs her arm. “Anthony, we’re just going upstairs for five minutes. Can you tell Ashwin we’ll be back soon?”

Melissa leads them up the stairs and Laurel introduces her two friends. “Well, at least there’s someone to keep Laurel from being too boring. We were worried about her.”

Sam tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, bracelets jangling. “I try.”

There’s a moment’s pause when Melissa pushes open the door to Tommy’s room as the eight or so people in the room focus on the three girls at the door and then here’s a shriek. Before Laurel can figure out where it’s coming from, there’s arms around her neck clinging to her and smelling of a familiar – expensive – perfume. “Oh my god! Laurel!”

Not wanting to smudge her make-up, Laurel blinks back tears and clears her throat. “Hey, Erica. It’s good to see you.” She shifts so she has one arm around Erica’s shoulders and her friend has one around her waist. The others are starting to gather to say hello.

Most of them she recognises but she supposes the unfamiliar ones who hang back are dates of her various friends. First up is Tommy, grinning in a way that makes her wonder what he’s planning.

“Hey, Laurel, sexy as always.” She narrows her eyes as he turns to look at Sam. “And Ashwin. You’re much prettier and shorter than I remember.”

“This is Sam. Be nice to her or I will hurt you.” She drags Sam around with her free arm to show her to the room. “My dad’s been making me take self-defence classes.”

“Your dad’s scary.” Tommy’s only meeting with her father – all two minutes of it – had left a strong impression on both of them. The Lances’ neighbours still hadn’t been talking to them when they’d moved out.

“So am I, Tommy.” But she smiles because she’s glad to see him too. “Happy Birthday.” She hugs him and gently presses a kiss to his cheek.

“Thanks. Now that you’re here, maybe Oliver will stop whining.”

“I don’t whine.” Oliver smiles but he’s not close enough for her to hug. “Hey, Laurel. I wasn’t sure you’d be here.”

“Someone talked me into it.” She wants to reach out and take his hand or to hug him or press a kiss to his cheek, like she did with Tommy. They’re all acceptable actions towards a friend but he’s still out of reach and she’s scared he’ll step backwards if she steps forwards.

Then Adam and Amanda are in between them. She hugs both of them happily but keeps her eyes on Oliver. In turn he watches her with an expression she can’t read.

Two glasses appear from somewhere – one for her and one for Sam – it’s a sparkling white wine that tickles her tongue. Sam stares at her glass, her grip awkward. Laurel leans over to whisper in her ear. “No one will say anything if you don’t want it, but the bottle is probably worth more than your dress.” Sam’s eyes are wide and she sips it cautiously just about hiding a grimace at the taste. Laurel’s not sure where Tommy got the wine from – it may have been something his father willingly gave him – but she knows that whatever they’re serving downstairs it’s likely to be non-alcoholic.

“Excuse us, Laurel, but Mel and I are going to borrow Sam for a few minutes. You and Ollie can go and make eyes at each other over there.” Erica hooks an arm through Sam’s free one.

Laurel’s cheeks heat up and she hopes that it isn’t too noticeable. Tommy’s snickers disabuse her of the notion, however. But then Oliver’s beside her. He’s close enough to hug – though she’s careful of his drink and hers. “Thanks for convincing me to come.” She follows him over and perches beside him on Tommy’s bed.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

She relaxes which is probably a bad idea given her boyfriend is waiting downstairs for her and probably wondering to where she has disappeared. It has been a good while longer than five minutes. “I'm glad to be here.” She sips her wine and looks around the room. Over in the corner, Erica and Melissa still have Sam in a huddle but Sam is throwing anxious looks in Laurel's direction. Adam, Amanda and a guy Laurel assumes is Melissa's date are sitting just outside the door in the corridor. Tommy and his date both down a shot and Tommy pours them another one.

“I missed you.” He takes a swig of his drink and watches her out of the corner of his eye.

She's missed him as well. Missed him in class, missed him at lunch, missed seeing smile, missed most things about him. “It sucks at school without you.”

“Most things do.” His tone makes an attempt at solemn, but his eyes are dancing and despite an obvious effort the corners of his lips are curving upwards.

Laurel giggles and he takes her hand, warm fingers curling around her own and making her short of breath. Her stomach twists with a mixture of nerves, guilt and something far more pleasant. She does her level best not to think about Ashwin, after all she's not actually doing anything wrong.

“Hey do you want to go somewhere and talk?” Oliver's eyes are on her face and for the first time she notices the way the dip of the mattress means that their knees are pressed together.

She's not an idiot. Oliver might actually want to talk but she's pretty sure that's not all. It's not all she wants either. And that's what makes her guilty conscience start shouting at her that her boyfriend is downstairs – waiting for her. And if she's going to go somewhere alone with Oliver she should really…

...break up with Ashwin first.

Laurel rocks backward a little at the realisation that she might just be a horrible person.

“Ollie...”

“Just to talk,” he promises. His eyes are wide and his grip on her hand tightens around hers. He's genuine she knows. But the problem with Oliver's promises is that he is always means them when he makes them, but he's just as likely to change his mind ten minutes later and mean something else altogether.

Still, she nods and when he stands, their fingers entwined, she rises with him. She ignores Tommy's smirk, Erica's waggling brows and Sam's worried frown as they leave the room. The small group who'd been outside the door have disappeared somewhere – presumably downstairs – so the rest of their trip is largely unimpeded. “Where're we going?”

Before he can respond, they round a corner and all Laurel sees is a brief glimpse of two men before Oliver shoves her back in the direction they've just come. Her ankle wobbles out and she nearly loses her balance in the high heels she's wearing, but she manages to catch her balance, without breaking her glass and only a small splash of wine ends up dripping on the floor.

“Ow!” She glares at him but he's not paying any attention to her.

“Hi Dad. Hi Mr. Merlyn.” His tone is bright and false.

Laurel's nerves and guilt come back in full force because, aside from Ashwin, if there are two people she doesn't want to catch her wandering around Tommy's house it's these two. With shaking hands, she tucks her drink behind a vase on a low table and wishes she could do something about the one hanging from Oliver's fingers.

“Hello Oliver. Enjoying the party?” She doesn't recognise the voice so she assumes it must be Mr. Merlyn. She's seen Tommy's dad in the society pages of the newspaper but she's never met him in person.

Oliver relaxes. “Yeah.”

“Who's that with you, Oliver?” And she does recognise Mr. Queen's voice. He doesn't sound particularly happy.

Oliver glances in her direction. “There's no one with me.”

Laurel spreads her hands but he doesn't see because his attention is back in front of him. She sighs and take matters into her own hands, sucking in a deep breath for courage she steps around the corner. “Hello, Mr. Queen, Mr. Merlyn.”

Mr. Queen's eyebrows go up in surprise, Mr. Merlyn – tall, dark-haired, not much like she thinks of Tommy – just seems faintly puzzled.

“Hello, Laurel. You look lovely tonight.”

She blushes a little at the compliment. “Thank you.”

“Perhaps you two should go back downstairs,” Mr. Merlyn suggests.

Oliver opens his mouth and she just knows he's going to tell a very obvious lie so she grabs his hand and starts to pull him away. “Yes, sir. Come on, Ollie.”

He follows her willingly enough but as soon as they're out of earshot – back near Tommy's room Laurel turns to him. “God, that was embarrassing.”

He just grins. “You could have stayed hidden.”

“Like anyone would have believed you!” But she's smiling, too.

Her heart pounding and her stomach tied in knots, she has to step back when he leans in to kiss her. “Ollie...”

“Ashwin?” His lip curls.

She nods. “He's a good person. I don't want to hurt him by going behind his back.”

As the saying goes, 'speak of the devil and he'll appear'. “Laurel? Where've you been?”

She spins so fast she nearly falls over – in retrospect the shoes were probably a bad idea – at the sound of her boyfriend's voice. “Ash? What're you doing up here?”

Oliver steps up close behind her and she is very aware of the fact he's very nearly touching her. She can feel his warmth and the softest brush of breath against her neck. Then his hand settles in the small of her back, out of Ashwin's sight. If the action wouldn’t draw too much attention, she’s shrug him off or step out of range.

“What are _you_ doing up here? You disappeared an hour ago and Sam said she hasn't seen you in a while.”

An hour, has it been that long? Also she owes Sam for not saying anything about Oliver.

“Uh, yeah, me and Oliver were just talking...”

Ashwin's eyebrows lift upward but his tone is flat. “Talking.”

“That's all.” And Oliver's voice is light with something she can't quite determine. But given the angry flush creeping up Ashwin's cheeks, it isn't anything pleasant.

The next few seconds are silent as the three of them stand in a frozen tableau, sounds from the party drifting upstairs to them. Oliver's hand creeps higher up her back to the neckline until his fingertips brush against her skin. She is torn between leaning back into it and telling him to stop touching her but Ashwin’s glare tells her either would still be a bad choice.

Instead she straightens her shoulders. “Ash. I'm sorry...” There's acid churning in her stomach and fire burning in her cheeks. This is more horrible than she could have imagined.

“Seriously?” He asks. “You're breaking up with me, now?”

“I'm sorry, Ash.” She can't think of anything to say so she simply repeats her apology.

He shakes his head. “Forget it.” He spins and storms off in the direction of the party.

“And tonight in drama...” Both Laurel and Oliver turn in the direction of a rumpled looking Tommy who has appeared at his bedroom door with his equally rumpled, giggling date.

Laurel opens her mouth to respond but finds herself without anything to say simply follows after Ashwin – hoping enough time has passed that she won't run into him. She just really needs to talk to Erica or Sam.

“Hey, Laurel wait.” Oliver chases after her, though even in her heels she's pretty fast. But the stairs present a challenge and she has to slow down or risk breaking her neck. He jogs down and in front of her. “Are you all right?”

Her faces is still too hot and her eyes are stinging. She presses at an ache in her temple. “No.”

His shoulders slump and his mouth turns downward, reminiscent of Thea. “Can I help?”

“No.” But she can't quite bring herself to leave it at that. “I'm sorry. Can we talk tomorrow?” right now she just wants to find her friends and maybe go home.

“Yeah.” He move to allow her past. “Call me and we can meet up or something.” Her last glimpse of him is looking down at her from halfway up the stairs. Instead of coming down, he heads back the way they came, presumably to talk to Tommy.

-x-x-x-

At the bottom of the stairs she's met by Sam and Erica. “Ashwin's gone. He looked pretty upset.” Sam sounds vaguely accusing until she gets a look and Laurel's face. “Are you all right?”

“Do you want one of us to punch someone for you?” Erica clenches her fists and holds them up in a fake fighting pose.

“No. I don't want you to fight anyone.” But she smiles a little as she says it. “Can I borrow your phone to call a cab?”

A familiar giggle distracts Laurel and she starts in surprise. “Sarah!” She is supposed to be staying over at a friend’s house. Though, now that Laurel thinks about it, that friend is Adam's younger sister.

Sarah cringes and turns back. “Oh, hey, Laurel.” She bites her lip, smudging her lipstick. Laurel doesn’t recognise the dress she’s wearing which means it might be a loan or it might be one of her friends bought it for her. “You're not going to tell mom and dad are you?”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “No.”

Sarah starts to saunter off, back to her own friends but spins around again. “Oh yeah. I heard about Ash. Sorry.” She leans over and hugs Laurel in a rare display of affection. And then she smiles quick and bright. “See you tomorrow!” And vanishes into the crowd.

“And people say we’re trouble.” Erica rolls her shoulders back, handing Laurel her cell.

Laurel frowns, accepting the phone. “That’s my sister.” Sarah’s a pain in the neck who talks back to everyone but she wouldn’t hurt anyone. In fact Laurel often has to worry about people hurting her.

Erica pats her on the arm and exchanges a look with Sam. “Still. Trouble.”

The automated message from the cab company picks up so Laurel doesn’t have a chance to answer.


	9. Chapter 9

-x-x-x-

Laurel and Oliver have an agreement to 'take it slow' which lasts until the Friday following Tommy's birthday. Their decision to keep their relationship from her parents last a good deal longer.

“Dad's going to kill you!” Sarah's glee shines through as she dances around the living room. “And Ollie. A lot.”

“Only if you tell him and Mom.” Laurel presses her lips together and frowns at her sister.

“Are you kidding me?” Sarah stops and stares. “With the amount of dirt you have on me, I'm never telling any of your secrets to _anyone_.”

“I'm glad to see as sisters we've reached a healthy friendship based entirely on blackmail.”

Sarah laughs as she checks her reflection in the small mirror hanging beside the door. “Love you, too, sis. I'm going over to April's.”

-x-x-x-

At his own sixteenth birthday party, Oliver kisses a girl Laurel doesn't recognise. She doesn't see the event as she's tucked in a corner with Erica watching Tommy's efforts to impress Sam. 

Oliver's off socialising, making his rounds with the guests, and she hasn't seen more than the occasional glimpse of him in about half an hour. He promised he'd make it back to her soon and she's starting to get impatient.

“Hey Laurel, can we talk for a second.” Melissa's eyes are a little glazed but her expression is tense and unhappy. “Over here.”

“Sure.” Laurel follows her friend over to a secluded corner, shrugging off both Sam's and Erica's concern.

Melissa takes Laurel's hands in her own. “I don't know how to say this, but...I just saw Oliver kissing someone else.”

The actual words barely register past the punch in the gut. “What?”

“I'm sorry, Laurel.”

She shakes her head. “Are you sure that's what you saw? Are you sure it was Oliver?”

“Yeah.”

Before Laurel can say anything else someone bumps into her from behind hard enough to make her stumble, nearly pulling Melissa down with her. “Hey, Laurel, better watch your boyfriend. He shouldn't be allowed out on his own.” Mocking laughter drifts back to them.

Laurel swears and pulls away from Melissa. “Excuse me, I've got to...” She pushes through the milling crowd thankful that most of them pay her little attention.

She's not sure if she's looking for Oliver or if she's just looking to get away, but there's no edge to the crowd that fills the open parts of the house. As she tries to navigate herself around, three people approach her with the same news as Melissa, two of them are genuinely upset for her, but one is smug and as she passes from room to room she receives a mixture of smirks and sympathy.

When she does find him she's torn between anger and hurt. Seeing him lean against the wall, staring out into the crowd, but not interacting with anyone does little to help her decide. Her stomach twists and her throat burns, heat rising in her cheeks; she hopes her trembling isn’t obvious to anyone watching.

He jumps a little when she comes into sight. “Oh, hey, Laurel.”

“What did you do, Ollie?” Her voice cracks a little on his name.

“It's not what you think!” He takes her by the hand and leads her through to the kitchen where they are finally, blessedly alone.

She allows him to lead her because she wants to hear explanation – wants even more for it to be a big mistake – but pulls out of his grasp the minute the door closes on the party. “If it isn't what I think, then what is it?” she asks.

He hovers in front of her, eyes down, weight shifting from foot to foot. “I didn't mean it...”

She closes her eyes in the hopes she can relieve the pressure building up behind them. It doesn't work and when she opens them, he's still not looking at her. Around the kitchen is gleaming and silent, not a plate or cup out of place. She studies the fruit bowl, with its artful arrangement and tries to think of what to say that isn't going to end with her crying.

“I wouldn't have done it if you didn't make us sneak around!”

“What?” she swings back to him, all traces of misery pushed down underneath shock.

His feet are planted apart, weight forward while his fists are balled. “All that stuff you can't do because you're afraid people might find out, that someone might tell your mom and dad. All that time we could have been dating like proper people, but we hardly even see each other!”

“Oliver...” She swallows, she had no idea he felt like that. But maybe he shouldn't have kissed someone else. “You can't make this my fault. You kissed someone else.”

His jaw is set, eyes flashing, not relenting.

“Fine.” She turns and strides towards the door.

“Laurel, wait.” Hand on the door handle, Laurel pauses and looks over her shoulder. He's looking at her, eyes dark, lips pulled down. “I'm sorry?” She doesn't like the upward lilt to his tone, he seems to almost be asking her if he should be sorry – or if feeling out the situation to see if she'll forgive him, sorry or not.

Laurel's not ready to forgive him – any attempt is completely lost in the mix of anger, hurt, shame and guilt. She's trying focus on the anger to let it push everything else out, at least when she's feeling angry nothing else tries to swamp her. She sucks in a deep breath and lets out.

“Why didn't you tell me you were mad about keeping us a secret?”

“I'm not.” His eyes are wide and blue. “I just...remember when we were always together? I miss being able to talk to you all the time.” His lips curve upward just touch. Oliver's always been able to be charming when he chooses. And because he's always genuine – at least to her – she falls for it every time.

“Okay.”

“Okay.” His brows lift up.

“I forgive you.”

He nods and his lips twist before they settle on a happy smile. When he steps towards her with an obvious intent, she holds up her hands to stop him from coming any closer.

“Not that much.” Not yet.

He holds out a single hand. She takes it, knowing as soon as she does that there really wasn't any hope.

-x-x-x-

Her parents give her a cell phone for her sixteenth birthday. They make a big production about trust and that she's in charge of making sure the bill is always paid. Unnoticed, Sarah snorts behind her hand, eyes dancing. Laurel ignores her, nods solemnly and thanks them.

She feels bad that the first number she programmes into it is Oliver's and that she puts it under a pseudonym. He's had a cell phone for years, but despite plenty of begging, she's not been allowed one. Sarah still isn't.

Being able to call him whenever she wants without anyone knowing is wonderful.

-x-x-x-

“No hard feelings.”

Laurel glances down at the pamphlet that Carter has just shoved into her hands. It's a campaign letter for the junior class president. She feels her stomach sink, there's no way she's going to be able to beat him if he's doing things like this – all she has is construction paper and a couple of packs of jumbo markers.

“Burn it,” Sam says as soon as Carter is out of earshot. “Burn them all!”

Laurel does _not_ burn the pamphlet, just crumples it into the nearest trash can.

When she wins, she manages not to repeat the words 'no hard feelings' back to him. Though she has to choke them back when he asks her out, despite the fact she turned him down more than once before. 

She’s always been grateful that Oliver has never pushed, never forced himself unwanted into her space. He has his fault and she’s cried over him more than is healthy but he’s never transgressed the boundaries she sets. Physically, he’s careful with her and she trusts him all the more for it.

-x-x-x-

Laurel wakes up one Saturday morning, just a little hung over. The previous evening she'd been out late keeping Oliver company at a charity event. His parents have recently decided he's old enough to start attending them and he’d begged her to keep him from being bored to tears or doing something drastic with a dessert fork.

Her parents thought she was at Sam's watching movies for the evening. Laurel feels bad for the lying but not enough to come clean about her and Oliver. She does not want to be told she can't see him any more – not when they've been together for nearly eight months this time. Her parents know that she and Oliver are friends, know that she's started to see her old friends again but seem to have missed the extent of her relationships, for which she is very grateful.

Laurel showers and dresses and from the quietness of the apartment gathers that her parents are driving out to collect Gran and bring her back. Sarah's probably up and about somewhere but they've both been told to stay home today, despite protests about friends and clubs. Laurel can't go into work anyway as the shop is shut for repairs after a couple of pipes blew. So she's expecting to be bored for the rest of weekend and Sarah is annoyed at everyone.

Laurel is in the kitchen fixing herself some cereal when Sarah walks in with a bowl of...

“Is that ice cream?” It’s not even ten am.

“Calcium for strong teeth and bones.” Sarah's smile is a little shark like. “Have you seen what's on the table?” She scoops up another spoonful and her smile fades a little.

“The newspaper?” Laurel had seen it and found it odd, as her dad usually kept it beside the couch in an untidy pile.

“You should read it.” Sarah's eyebrows go up and she eats another bite of her ice cream as she follows Laurel out to the dining area, curling one leg under herself as she sits down.

Laurel sets her bowl on the table, careful not to spill any milk and scoops up the paper only to feel herself freeze as she catches sight of what – or rather who – is in the picture: herself. Oliver's arm is draped around her waist, her hand resting on his shoulder and they're looking at each other, smiling. The caption reads: 'Adorable! Sixteen year old Oliver Queen and girlfriend Laurel Lance'.

Her stomach twists. She's never been in the newspaper before and it's a really nice picture and the caption is really sweet (subsequent encounters with the press will not be as pleasant for her). She likes the way she and Oliver are standing, the way they're looking at each other – and even despite the anxiety, she still feels warm.

But the anxiety still wins out. “I am so dead.” She thumps her head on the table, bumping her bowl enough the milk spills out.

“Oh yeah,” agrees Sarah. She pats Laurel on the head.

“How mad are they?”

“On a scale of one to ten?” She waits for nodded Laurel's answer. “Seventeen. Which is how old you're never going to be, because you're never going to get to that birthday.”

“I'm not going to stop seeing Oliver.” She sits up and ignores the fact that there are tears on her cheeks. Sarah gets out her chair, leaves the ice cream bowl and comes over to Laurel seat. She wraps her arms around her sister and holds her for a few seconds.

It's an odd sensation as usually it's the other way around – Laurel comforting Sarah when she's hurt, or mad at their parents. But she enjoys knowing at least one person is on her side.

Laurel finishes her breakfast and eats half of Sarah's ice cream before going to her room to call Oliver in the hopes it'll make her feel better. But if anything it ends up making her feel worse. Oliver hasn't seen or heard about the newspaper article, but seems reasonably pleased with the whole situation until Laurel points out that now her parents know and are not happy. They're going to know she was sneaking around behind their backs, lying, and with someone that they don't like.

Oliver seems more concerned after her explanation about the situation but points out that her parents are likely to 'get mad and get over it'. As his mom and dad are so much more forgiving of transgressions than her own, she's not so sure. Her mom might be all right on her own – she's relatively easy to get around – but she is definitely going to side with Laurel’s dad in this situation.

In the end she hangs up miserably with a slightly more sober Oliver making her promise to call when she could and making his promises about not caring if they have to sneak around for the next two years. Laurel doesn't say it but she doesn't want to lie to her parents any more, is sick of sneaking around and just wants to be a normal person with a normal boyfriend.

She's attempting to do her homework with little success as the numbers in her pre-calc text keep floating around and refusing to make sense when the front door slams and there's voices and she can hear voices and greeting being exchanged as Sarah undoubtedly starts on her yearly 'be nice to Gran' campaign.

Laurel swallows because she can hear someone coming down the hall and seconds later her dad is sticking his head around the door. His brows are drawn together and his mouth pulling down at the corners. She cringes and bites her lip, fingers curling at the hem of her shirt, waiting for the axe to fall.

For long moments he says nothing and it only makes her feel worse – because there's not a lot of noise from the other rooms and she's not sure what that means. Eventually, staring at her work and not seeing any it, she manages a muttered, “I'm sorry.”

“You're grounded. For two weeks.”

She snaps her head to him and opens her mouth to protest.

“Whatever you're about to say you can rethink it. You were lying to me and your mom for how long? Months?”

She slumps and nods. “I'm sorry,” she repeats.

“That's not going to cut it, Laurel. You lied. Wilfully. I thought you were better than that.” His words hurt more than she expected and she looks away from him. “Give me your phone.”

“What? No. Dad. You can't. I need my phone!”

“Now, Laurel.”

Reluctantly she hands it over. He tucks it into his back pocket and she knows she won't see it again until he gives it back to her which might be in two weeks or might be a long way away. She is very, very glad that she managed to call Oliver earlier but is regretting the fact that she won't be able to call Sam or Erica and tell them what is happening.

“Now come out and say 'hello' to your grandmother.”

She nearly stays behind but ends up following him out to the living room because she knows he won’t let her get away with sitting in her room sulking. And it's only as her grandmother is telling her how pretty she looks in the picture and how handsome her boyfriend is that Laurel realises he never told her she couldn't see Oliver any more.

-x-x-x-


	10. Chapter 10

-x-x-x-

Every time she and Oliver go their separate ways, a little piece of Laurel's heart seems to be chipped away. At her lowest points she wonders if one day there'll be nothing left. At her angriest she think it's not healthy, not right, that they're only hurting each other worse. But then he wanders into her life and one of them cracks and they're back together. When she's with him she sometimes doubts but then he kisses her, or throws an arm around her shoulders or just smiles and she forgets to be worried. 

She knows she loves him in a way that ebbs and flows but never disappears in its entirety, even when she wishes it would.

-x-x-x-

They're seventeen and have followed Tommy to a party somewhere on the opposite edge of the city from Oliver. The plan had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now Laurel's mostly sober and she's regretting the impulse.

Oliver picked a fight with the acquaintance whose car they drove out in – an argument that escalated but managed to avoid coming to blows – and now they have no ride home. As the host had sided against them they'd had to leave without waiting for a cab to come and collect them. So they're now walking the long road back into the city.

Tommy suggested that they try and hitch a ride. Oliver had agreed on the grounds that it sounded like fun.

Laurel had been less than amused. “It sounds like a good way to be murdered and buried in a shallow grave.” But after forty-five minutes her feet are sore. The shoes she's wearing are not made for long walks, the left heel is busted and her toes are so pinched she's halfway to deciding to go barefoot on the uneven gravel.

The street they're walking along is dark, empty and bordered by hobby farms. None of the few cars have stopped for Tommy or Oliver's outstretched thumbs. She's beginning to feel as apprehensive walking along as she would accepting a ride from a stranger.

“We should hide.” Tommy decides after another car passes them without even slowing down.

Laurel is leaning on Oliver as she hobbles along. His arm is around her waist and her hand balanced on his shoulder. Their pace has slowed considerably. “No one will see us at all then.” She's being obtuse on purpose because she can guess what Tommy is about to suggest and really doesn't want to have to go through with it – even if it means she doesn't have to walk any more.

“Oliver and I hide. You convince the cars to stop.”

Laurel shivers and Oliver tightens his grip on her. Exactly what her father would say if he could hear what they're talking about runs through the back of her mind. But her dad's not present and she has torn blisters on her feet so she nods. A good five minutes pass before another car appears and both boys have to scramble up a low bank to hide behind a low hedge.

She watches them go and tentatively sticks out her thumb hoping that this isn't going to end in rape, murder or ransom. Time stretches and fear climbs up the back of her throat, the approaching headlights taking meandering towards her. When the car is finally close enough for to determine colour and make she swears.

“What?” Oliver's head sticks up for half a second before Tommy pulls it back down again.

“The police. Stay up there.” No way can Laurel hide before the cop car reaches her – and that's provided that they haven't already seen her trying to hitch. She just has to hope that she can convince them she fine and doesn't need a ride. If the universe is kind they won't know her father – she tells herself that it's very unlikely this far out of the city and away from his precinct that they will.

Of course as soon as the car pulls over and the window winds down Laurel feels her heart sink.

“Laurel? Laurel Lance?”

“Hi Officer Parker!” The female police officer in the driver's seat used to work in the same precinct as Laurel's father. She doesn't recognise the male officer in the passenger seat.

“What are you doing so far out here, Laurel?” Officer Parker's brows are pulled in a frown and she climbs out of the car. Unspoken is the 'does your father know?'

Up until now Laurel hadn't considered what she would say if asked, but then for any strangers the truth would have done. Now she can't think of a lie that would make sense. “We got kicked out of a party.”

“We?” Officer Parker glances around the seemingly deserted area, and Laurel knows she looks like she's alone. Maybe she can just leave Tommy and Oliver to fend for themselves as that's just what they deserve for getting her into trouble.

“Uh...” But even if Laurel had really planned on leaving them there, it's not going to happen because she's interrupted by a yelp and a thump from somewhere just above.

When Officer Parker goes for her gun Laurel closes her eyes and prays that the night isn't going to get any worse. Her heel throbs with a sharp burst of pain and she's sure it isn't a good omen.

“Owww.” When Laurel opens her eyes at the low moan, she's presented with a confused police officer – partner half out of the car and Tommy lying flat on his back at her feet, looking up.

“You're an idiot,” Laurel says controls the urge to give kick him, but does nudge his ribs with the pointed toe of her shoe.

“Do you know him?” Officer Parker asks. She's relaxed a little and she offers Tommy a hand up, which he takes, stumbling as he tries to balance. In the dim light provided by the headlights, Laurel can see he’s cross-eyed along with unsteady.

“Yes, ma'am.” Oliver is picking his way down the embankment, feet also a little unsteady and he comes to stand beside them grinning guiltily. He wraps an arm around Laurel but she shrugs him off.

The three of them are bundled into the back seat of the car and Laurel winces, trying not to notice just how drunk both boys are. But it’s hard to deny when they're arguing about whether or not Oliver pushed Tommy down the bank. As the car heads into the city, she tilts her head back to look at the roof of the car – she's in the middle seat, being the smallest of the three. If she wishes really hard maybe she'll convince the officers to drop her off without taking her up to her parents.

Officer Parker's partner lectures the three of them about how dangerous it was for them to be hitchhiking and then throws in a few statistics for good measure. Laurel wonders if they're true or if he's just making them up to frighten them. Oliver and Tommy endure the speech with ill grace, stopping just short of outright rudeness. Though the way Tommy is rolling his eyes and Oliver is glaring out the window, muttering under his breath, they're not far from it.

The first time Oliver's hand ends up on her knee she picks it up and drops back on his lap. The second time she leaves it there and as they approach her family's apartment building she leans her head on his shoulder. If she's going to her execution, she doesn't want to be mad at him about anything.

She tries to insist to Officer Parker that she's fine going up by herself, but the she can't deter the woman who insists that she just wants to see Laurel 'safely inside'. In elevator Laurel kicks off her shoes, sighing as her feet hit the worn carpet and she tries one more time to convince the cop to let her go home by herself.

Her mother opens the door to the apartment, takes one look at Laurel – ruined shoes, rumpled appearance, accompanied by a cop – and calls for her father. Any hope Laurel had of this not being the end of the world is crushed quickly when she's grounded. She points out that a) she's not drunk, b) she's not dead and c) she's not past curfew, but being brought home by the police trumps everything.

Shutting the door on her parents’ whispered argument about how long she should be grounded for, Laurel promises herself that she's never going to let Oliver or Tommy talk her into anything so stupid again. The consequences are just not worth the fun, because as soon as Oliver's name is mentioned her dad loses his temper and everything becomes ten times worse.

-x-x-x-

Laurel has a rule. No going out on a school night. Also no going anywhere that she can’t get a cab home from. Neither rule was laid down by her parents, but they approve of her keeping both.

In practise the rules are hard ones to follow. Oliver is out most nights and has only a tentatively enforced curfew. He’s happy to spend the afternoons with her, even when she makes him study, but he becomes irritable when she tells him that she wants to spend her evenings at home. For a while they argue about her ‘inability to have fun’ and his ‘inability to take anything seriously’ on an almost daily basis.

The fighting almost drives her to break up with him because she feels guilty when she doesn’t go out with him and guilty when she does crack, even if it’s just eating dinner at his house. But eventually they settle into a routine and their relationship ceases to be antagonistic. _Openly_ antagonistic because she spends too much time pretending she doesn’t know where he’s going, what he’s doing.

Laurel knows Oliver is picked up and driven home by the police every now and again, mostly for drinking and causing trouble but occasionally for fighting. On the weekends or when she’s with him, she’s able to set some controls, providing he’s not too wasted. If she asks he’ll at least try to temper his substance abuse but he makes no such allowances if she’s not with him and he uses her absence against her sometimes, too.

When his parents give him a car for his eighteenth birthday, her mom makes her promise never to let him drive her anywhere when he’s drunk. The promise lasts a week before she is compelled to break it. His car is sleek and shiny – she doesn’t know or care what type it is – and he likes to drive it really fast. Riding with him is terrifying as well as exhilarating even as she scolds him about slowing down or not running a stop signs.

Oliver is only stopped once while she’s with him but as he’s sober at the time he’s able to charm his way out of a ticket from the cop who doesn’t recognise Laurel. The SCPD – whether they know her father or not – becomes less tolerant of his antics. Only his family’s money and influence keep him from finding any real trouble, or at least having it stick.

-x-x-x-

Tommy is the one who calls her after Oliver is arrested for the first time: DUI, reckless driving causing injury and failing to stop at a red light (an elderly driver was forced to swerve and hit a streetlight). No one is seriously hurt and Oliver’s only just over the legal limit. Despite being underage, it’s still a mystery how he manages to avoid any real consequences for his actions.

Well, no. Again his family’s influence and money has more than a little to do with him receiving nothing other than the legal equivalent of ‘don’t do it again’.

The worst part of it for Laurel is when the pictures start surfacing in the middle of the scandal. Oliver and a girl – who had been in the car at the time of the accident – outside a popular nightclub. They’re wrapped around each other in a way that can’t be mistaken for anything other than what it is, especially as Oliver’s hand is tucked under the waist band of the girl’s skirt.

Laurel doesn’t find out about the pictures for nearly twenty four hours after they’re published. She’s only vaguely aware that her name is once again making its way through the school rumour mill until Ashwin, of all people, takes her aside and tells her to check out a couple of online gossip sites. From anyone else she’d expect it be rooted in jealousy, but Ashwin forgave her a long time ago. Now his eyes are dark and his mouth pulled tight. He squeezes her arm and asks her if she’d like him to punch Oliver.

When she sees the pictures her stomach plummets and she wishes that she’d taken Ashwin up on his offer. She stews about what to do for maybe five minutes before calling Oliver to confront him about what really happened that night. She’s not sure it’s a good sign that he doesn’t immediately admit it, but crumbles after a few pointed questions. 

He tells her that ‘it didn’t mean anything’ and ‘nothing happened’. On the other end of the phone she closes her eyes and tries not to remember the fading bruise on his neck the last time she saw him. “I love you, Laurel.”

And that’s what she has to cling to when the media runs with the opportunity to analyse their relationship. Though experience is humiliating, they’re careful what they actually print about her. Rarely does an actual reporter bother to speak to her – especially when her dad has one arrested for ‘harassing a minor’. Mostly she’s painted as the injured one by the tabloids, though a couple of the more sleazy ones make veiled references to possible reasons why Oliver might cheat on her. 

Laurel holds her breath and waits for the scandal to blow over.

-x-x-x-


	11. Chapter 11

-x-x-x-

“Do you want me to scratch her eyes out? I’ve wanted to forever,” Erica murmurs in Laurel’s ear. They’re at Oliver’s prom – which is also Erica’s, who has temporary put herself on Tommy’s arm for some reason Laurel can’t define.

Oliver’s prom king and the girl standing beside him, getting her crown in the same one he was photographed with a month before. Laurel’s fists clenched when she recognised her especially as the girl has been smirking at her from up on the stage, alternating with smiling at Oliver. But he’s not stupid enough to do anything other than look at Laurel the whole time. She’d like it to be because he loves her, but she’s not entirely sure that’s what keeps his eyes on her.

“You’d get blood on your dress,” Laurel murmurs back to her friend, though she’s happy her friend is willing to take her side.

Erica licks her lips, smudging her lipstick a little. “Worth it.”

Five minutes later and Oliver has abandoned the stage and crown and found his way back to Laurel, wrapping an arm around her waist and kissing the air beside her cheek. “Want to dance?”

“What about…?” she waves her arm to indicate the prom queen who is standing on the steps of the stage clearly scanning the crowd for him, seeming to not realise he’s returned to Laurel.

“I don’t want to dance with her.” Maybe it’s petty but the knot in her stomach loosens at his words so she follows him out on to the dance floor. She winds her arms around his neck and looks up into his face – even when she’s in heels he’s taller than her now – and he smiles down at her, not glancing away. She wonders if maybe it does have something to do with love.

-x-x-x-

“I’m sorry, Oliver, but I can’t let you in.” Laurel’s principal (once also Oliver’s principal) is smiling but her voice and eyes are flat.

“Come on. I paid for these tickets.” Around Laurel’s waist Oliver’s arm tightens and when she looks over at him his jaw is tight.

“And as you were informed, before you left, you were not to come back on to school property after the expulsion was finalised.” Any trace of the smile is gone from Ms Callahan’s face completely. There are other students lining up behind them, murmuring at the prospect of a confrontation.

“That was two years ago. Besides you don’t want to ruin Laurel’s night, do you?” The first step to Oliver’s plan whenever he doesn’t get his own way starts with charming and cajoling which worked on most people. “This isn’t even school property.”

“It is for tonight. And I’m sure Laurel’s ability to have a good time isn’t completely dependent on you, Oliver.” When confronted with a member of the Queen family most people crumble at the first sign of resistance – even authority figures. Ms Callahan, however, was able to keep Oliver out of the school despite the threats, the promises and the lawyers. She’s not going to concede to this. Maybe Laurel shouldn’t, but she can’t help but admire that kind of strength.

Depending on the nature of Oliver’s audience, the next step is usually belligerence or calling his father. “I’m calling my dad.”

Ms Callahan eyes narrow but she doesn’t back down. “It won’t do anything because I can’t change the rules no matter what carefully worded threats or money your father decides to throw at me, Oliver.”

Oliver pulls out his phone, but Laurel tugs on his arm. “Ollie, stop.” She pulls him out of line, most of the eyes in the line follow them and the hum of voices momentarily rises. “What are you doing?”

He doesn’t answer immediately, instead it’s his turn to pull Laurel a little further away. “You go in and I find a way to sneak in.” She shakes her head. “You go in and I go home?”

“Let’s just leave.”

He tries to insist she go in but caves quickly, leading her back to his car. They pass Sam and her date and Laurel explain what’s going on to her best friend. The look Sam throws Oliver is frosty as she tries to convince Laurel to stay but her date’s whining drags her towards the reception room.

Laurel sits in the passenger seat of the car, leaning her head against the window as Oliver manoeuvres the car out through the parking lot past the people still pouring in through the wide iron gates. Some wave at Laurel confusedly and mouth ‘what?’ at her, but she just smiles and waves back. She’s sure that enough people witnessed the altercation for everyone to know by the end of the night.

Neither of them speak as he drives them through the streets. Despite his inability to obey the speed laws, Oliver is a good driver when he’s not drunk and more inclined to follow the road rules when she’s with him. Though he does like to see if she’s paying attention every now and again.

“Stop sign.” She looks over at him in time to catch a flash of teeth in the passing street lights.

“Missed it.”

“Cop car.”

His head snaps around but is able to determine quickly that she’s teasing. “You’re so funny, Laurel.” But there’s an amused tremor behind his sarcasm.

By then she’s smiling too, sitting up straight and curious about their destination. She doesn’t have long to wait. He pulls over and parks at the side of the road before getting out. Laurel does likewise, looking at where he’s brought her. The entire are is dark and quiet and not at all safe. “The park’s closed, Ollie.”

“They never lock the side gate.” He offers her his hand and she takes it reluctantly, following him along the boundary wall of Starling Park. It’s the oldest public space in the city and parts of the wall have stood since the eighteenth century, repaired at tax payer cost and demand rather than being replaced cheaply. Laurel runs a hand along the crumbling rock as they walk, glad she’s not wearing gloves.

“It’s probably full of drug dealers and rapists.” The one about not going into parks after nightfall was pounded into her head young.

“You listen to your dad too much.” Even in the dark she can see him roll his eyes.

“He’s arrested a lot of really bad people.”

The side gate is down an avenue which is a pretty walk in daylight, but in the dark the overhanging trees black out the small amount of light from the city and the moon. She shivers and hold his hand a little tighter.

“I promise if we meet anyone who’s really bad I will save your life.” If he’s aiming for reassuring he might want to think about not attempting to take on a drug dealer.

“Really?” Just because she’s following him, it doesn’t mean she believes he’s capable of keeping her safe.

She follows him through the gate, which is not only unlocked but also not even latched. “Okay, not really. But I will run like hell and hope they don’t have a gun.”

“And me?”

“Running in the opposite direction. That way they can only follow one of us.”

“You’ve thought about this way too much.”

Oliver leads her off the path, under the trees again, heading up the hill. They grow sparser here, the sky showing through in patches, but it’s not really any less creepy. Anyone could be hiding behind any one of them and the eerie quiet is overwhelming. Her heels sink into the dirt, she’s really not dressed for this walk but she sucks in a deep breath and presses closer against him.

“We’re here.”

Laurel’s about to ask ‘where?’ but by that time he’s already let go of her hand is starting to climb. She stares. He’s clumsy but still better than she’s ever thought possible – if she’d ever thought about how well Oliver can climb trees.

“I can’t climb trees in this dress, Oliver.” But she kicks off her shoes and tries anyway. It’s easier than she thought, the branches start low and are wide and evenly spaced, but her dress catches often and the bark is unpleasantly rough against the soles of her feet. Still she’s sitting beside Oliver on a branch that’s wide enough to hold their combined weight, but not be comfortable in less than a minute.

“Wow.” Perhaps it’s not the best view of the city, partially blocked by other trees but it’s still impressive. Sitting side by side is not a great angle for it, but Oliver kisses her. She wobbles and breaks it quickly catching her balance against the trunk. She rests her head on his shoulder and they sit there for long minutes.

“How did you find this place?” She shifts her weight, trying to relieve the way the branch is poking into her leg.

“Mrs. Merlyn used to bring us here all the time and this was the best climbing tree.” Oliver’s voice is a little sad at the memory.

“What happened to her?” she asks him. Tommy never ever speaks about his mom but then he barely speaks about his father either. “I mean I know she died, but…” There are a lot of open secrets in their group of friends, things they all know but never talk about but this one is never mentioned at all.

Oliver draws in a breath and lets it out slowly. “She was murdered.” Laurel rubs her arms. “Some guy stole her purse and killed her.”

“Poor Tommy, that’s horrible.” She might fight with her dad a lot but she can’t imagine living without either of her parents.

“Yeah.” He swings down off the branch, nearly dislodging her but heading for the ground rapidly. She follows him at a careful pace, flicking her dress back and forth to avoid it catching anywhere.

Oliver helps her off the lowest branch and passes her her shoes. “I’m sorry you missed your prom.”

“It’s fine, Ollie.” And most of it is. She regrets that she won’t see her friends in their dresses, that she didn’t get to spend time with them as planned, or dance with Oliver but she’s enjoyed spending the evening with him alone. “It’s been fun.”

“Fun? Fun? I give her the city and she tells me ‘it’s been fun’.”

But he offers her his hand and leads her back the way they came. The park is just as creepy and deserted as before but now she also has the knowledge of what happened to Tommy’s mom and the reality of the stuff her dad is always ranting about closes in on her. Every rustle of leaves sound like someone brushing past the trees, in the distance something like a twig snaps and she jumps.

“Hey. It’s all right. There’s no one here. I promise.”

Which is all well and good until they end up back on the path and there’s suddenly a flashlight shining at them. “What the hell are you two kids doing here?”

Despite his earlier plan, Oliver takes her hand and drags her back up the path, then into the trees, zigzagging between them. Laurel stumbles in her impractical shoes, the heels sinking into the dirt and the straps catching on leaves and sticks. Thankfully they don’t go far before he ducks behind a tree and pulls her against him.

The man and his flashlight go blundering past them and Laurel drops her head to Oliver’s chest, trying to make her breathing not to sound so loud. After a couple of minutes the guy has disappeared so she looks up again. “If we die, I am so going to kill you.”

“I think he’s a security guard or custodian or something. He was wearing a uniform.”

“If I get arrested, I’m going to kill you.”

He’s just grinning at her. “We’re not going to be arrested. If we head back he’ll never catch up to us in time.” His hand is still clenched around hers so she follows him back the way they’ve just run so they can get to the path again.

“If I ruin my shoes, I’m going to kill you.”

“Why are you so obsessed with killing me?”

“We’re wondering around the park at night. Somebody’s going to die.” She’s only half joking. Maybe that guy really is only the security guard or whatever but she’s still shaking with fright.

By the time they’ve reached the path they’re close to the gate which is a relief to Laurel because she’s really not in a hurry to die or be arrested. She’s given up hope on the shoes, though. 

The car is parked in under a streetlight that casts and orange glow. Oliver has a twig in his hair which she brushes away, and a tear in the sleeve of his blazer which she can do nothing about (seriously, nothing, not unless he wants it worse off than now). She has no doubt she looks just as bad and she is going to have to do something about that before her parents see her because when they do they’re going to jump to conclusions.

“I get into so much trouble when I’m with you,” she says, walking around him and dusting leaves and bark from his suit.

“Really? I get into so much less.” He is gentler than her in helping her tidy up. He loops his free arm around her, but tucks their joined hands between them and leans down and kisses her.

“Hey! You two! Wait!” The custodian/security guard is peering over the wall at them.

A heartbeat later they’re both in the car, laughing, and Oliver is peeling away from the curb.

-x-x-x-


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the shortest chapter by a long shot.

-x-x-x-

Long distance relationships are as hard and miserable as everyone makes them out to be and with most of her friends out of the city Laurel is lonely for the first month or so of college. Everyone – even herself – is busy with classes and social activities. Oliver in particular takes to partying like a fish to water, but that’s hardly surprising given that he always has been able to find a good party at any given moment. And people are always lining up to have Oliver Queen (or for that matter, Tommy Merlyn) at their parties.

Oliver and Laurel talk most days, though sometimes it’s only for a couple of minutes before Oliver has somewhere to race. The shorter the phone call the lonelier she feels and the more she involves herself in her own college life. She’s carving out a space for herself that doesn’t include Oliver in a way that she hasn’t done since she was thirteen.

She wonders if this is the end and she shies away from the thought because she’s not ready to leave him behind, not ready to abandon that part of her life. But at the same time he’s so far away, on the other side of the country, leading a life that she’s not part of, that she becomes more and more detached from all the time. He spends so much of his time partying – she knows he’s not doing his classwork when he prevaricates or changes the subject.

Their conversations are becoming increasingly shallow, ‘how are your classes?’ ‘fine, how is Tommy’ ‘fine’, and filled with long silences where neither of them says anything but both are unwilling to hang up. 

Lacking any solid proof Laurel can’t say for sure he’s cheating on her. Google provides are range of confusing and contradictory advice about how to tell if he’s being unfaithful, and none seems to fit Oliver’s behaviour. But she knows him and when he’s partying or clubbing people like to attach themselves to him – she sometimes went with him purely to keep other women at bay – and he’s not very good at saying no. Not to sex, not to alcohol, not to drugs. Oliver sleeping around behind her back is not her only fear and she wishes he’d be more careful.

-x-x-x-

“Indecent exposure.” Tommy is nearly gleeful and she pictures him with eyes sparkling, grinning broadly. In terms of arrests this puts the two of them on equal footing – though both of Tommy’s have been ‘drunk and disorderly’.

Laurel closes her eyes and considers dropping her head to her desk. Repeatedly. Hard. But her desk is on the other side of her room. She doesn’t ask for details, as she really doesn’t want to know exactly what happened. “And where were you while this was happening?”

“Laurel, Laurel, Laurel, do you really want to know what I was doing at one am this morning?”

“No.” Whatever he might have been doing while his best friend was being arrested, Laurel is certain it wasn’t sleeping. 

“Don’t worry his mom and dad are here. I’m sure it won’t be a problem for long.”

Laurel rolls her eyes. “Of course not. Where’s Thea?” Oliver’s never exactly set the best example and his sister worships the ground he walks on. She doesn’t like to think what Thea makes of the situation.

“Here. Though I think she’s had a phone surgically attached to her face since I saw her last.” There’s an indignant squawk on the other end of the line. “Laurel says ‘hi’.”

“Hi, Laurel!” echoes back down the line. 

Somewhere else a door slams and there’s a new murmur of voices.

“Do you want to talk to him?” Tommy asks. The voices continue indistinctly, though she can definitely pick out Oliver. He sounds defensive, but not agitated. She wishes he cared more about the trouble in which he finds himself.

“How hung over is he?” She’s mad enough to shout at him, but not cruel enough to do it while his head is pounding. “I can wait until he’s in a place to appreciate how furious I am.” She hears her name but ignores it, lacking any interest in being drawn into a conversation with her idiot of a boyfriend. “Bye, Tommy.” And she hangs up.

-x-x-x-

Oliver returns home for Thanksgiving and immediately it becomes clear that while the physical side of their relationship has not suffered from the absence, other aspects have. And as pleasant as it is to be able to touch him, kiss him, feel the side of his skin against hers, she can also feel the emotional disconnect between them.

They study together for a while – he is failing, or close to failing some of his classes – and she tries to question him in a roundabout way but he doesn’t bite at any of the carefully dropped bait.

He takes her out on both Friday and Saturday night, is loud and raucous, buys her drinks and keeps his arm around her shoulders. Someone snaps a picture of them which doesn’t manage to hide how inebriated he is and is splashed across several gossip sites (her dad is irritated – he still isn’t recovered from the ‘Sarah’s caught shop lifting’ ordeal and this just pisses him off even more).

The truth is when Laurel tells Oliver she loves him – as he’s leaving to return to CCU – she’s not entirely sure if she means it or if she’s just saying the words out of habit. His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes as he promises to call her as soon as he’s safely in Coast City.

Driving home she can’t quite stop the tears rolling down her cheeks.

-x-x-x-

Ashwin’s grandmother dies in early December and he returns home for the funeral. They’re not as close anymore, but they are friends so she attends as moral support. The service is long and little dull, filled with people she’s never met. The church is packed with flowers so all she is really aware of is the scent of lilies and the back of Ashwin’s head, three rows in front. In the years to come this will be the funeral she remembers: filled with dusty hymns, pretty words and few tears. Of Sarah’s funeral all she will retain is the hardness of the pew and broken sobs of her mother.

People, she learns, mourn the loss of the elderly like a softened blow. There’s a peace – if sorrowful – to the end of a long life well-lived. Compared to this quiet dignity, the death of the young is met with a stunned silence and raw, jagged grief.

After the service she hugs Ashwin and he thanks her for coming.

She buys him lunch because he looks like he could do with a distraction. Even grieving he’s good company – but he always was an attentive listener and active participant in any conversation. In some ways she regrets their relationship ended, he was a good boyfriend and not nearly as complicated or as painful as Oliver. The only down point was she never could have loved him as much as he deserved and he deserved so much more than she could ever have given him.

Two hours before he’s due to fly back out to New York they walk through Western Park. The sun is shining but the air is heavy with moisture from a recent storm, everything bright and damp. “Are you and Oliver still a thing?” he asks her.

“Does it matter?” she returns.

He shakes his head and sighs softly. “With you? I guess not.” But when she presses him he doesn’t explain.

She drives him to the airport because he says he doesn’t want to be around family. At the gate she kisses him on the cheek. “Don’t be a stranger.”

He hugs her. “Never.”

-x-x-x-

When she gets home she calls Oliver and tells him it’s over. In his stunned silence she hangs up and doesn’t cry. She ignores his calls for the next two weeks. After that he stops trying and she reminds herself that it’s for the best.

-x-x-x-

Aside from group emails and one drunken text, Oliver doesn’t contact her in anyway until the summer. She returns the favour because she’s not sure what she can say that will ease them back into friendship.

When his exploits start earning him a regular spot in the tabloids she pretends that it doesn’t hurt as much as it does. When Sam and Erica make concerned calls, Laurel reassures them that she’s fine and Oliver’s entitled to live his life however he chooses. When another DUI lands him with a cast and an overnight stay in the hospital as well as a court date, she tells herself that she doesn’t actually want to rush out and see him. Not even when he doesn’t respond to her email.

An entreaty to Tommy prior to Christmas results in nothing more than him following Oliver when he drops out of school. They end up in New York where Sam reports a fight between Oliver and Ashwin, though she seems confused as to what actually caused the altercation, putting it down to alcohol. Sam also confesses to sleeping with Tommy and will Laurel please not hate her for it because she already hates herself enough.

Laurel sends a brief message to both Tommy and Oliver that mostly consist of ‘what the hell’ or something a little more to the point. Tommy responds with a feeble ‘sorry?’ Oliver doesn’t answer at all. She calls Ashwin to ask him much the same. He sheepishly admits that he provoked a very wasted Oliver because he didn’t like the girl Oliver was with. Ashwin does make the point that Laurel was barely mentioned but still refuses to elaborate no matter how she pushes.

She is torn between being relieved that she’s far, far away from them all and worrying that maybe if she’d been there she could have been a mitigating force. 

Or maybe not.

-x-x-x-


	13. Chapter 13

-x-x-x-

“So are you and Ollie getting back together?” Sarah’s voice drifts from the back of Laurel’s wardrobe where she’s hunting for a pair of shoes to wear. Tonight they’re both attending the party at the Queen’s – Oliver celebration that summer had finally arrived. He’ll be starting yet another school in the fall – Laurel’s not sure how that works, but college doesn’t seem to suit him.

“Why would you say that?” Laurel frowns at her reflection as she applies lip liner. Her reflection frowns back at her, carefully applied eye make-up dipping and crinkling.

“These ones?” Sarah holds up a pair of black pumps with a heavy heel. Laurel doesn’t like them and isn’t sure she’s even worn them once. “And because you, Ollie, parties…tends to be a big deal for you guys. Breaking up, getting back together…” she shrugs. 

“You can keep them. And Oliver and I have been to plenty of parties as friends, as dates, where nothing unusual happens.” Laurel turns around to glare at her sister as she sits on the end of Laurel’s bed and puts on the shoes. For once Sarah’s wearing less make-up then Laurel, but loses none of the punch she always seems to manage. She looks older than seventeen, older than Laurel, especially with her lips turned down, eyes dark and serious.

And then she shrugs, rolls her eyes and the illusion falls away. “Whatever. You never think these things are going to happen, but they do.” She stands and shifts her weight around, takes a few steps, twists a little and examines herself in the mirror. “Pretty good.” She blows a kiss at her reflection and then giggles at her own silliness. “Leave in ten?”

Laurel nods and then shakes her head as soon as Sarah’s gone but catches herself when her sister sticks her back around her door.

“My two cents? Don’t do it. He fucks with your head—” she holds a hand out when Laurel opens her mouth to say something in her defence, or maybe Oliver’s— “I don’t, like, think he means to but he does. And I kinda think you fuck with his. And when it’s all over you mope and he sends me whiney texts to ask if it’s safe to call you.”

Laurel wraps her arms around her waist and tries to ignore what Sarah’s saying because it’s so alarmingly on point. “Oh so when Dad tells you what to do, it’s ‘controlling and overprotective’ but when he tells me what to do you parrot his words back to me.”

“I call it like I see it. And anyway, Dad doesn’t say anything about ‘fucking’ – he calls Oliver ‘manipulative’ and you ‘obsessed’.” Sarah rolls her shoulders a little and doesn’t meet Laurel’s eyes.

Laurel feels like she hasn’t looked at Sarah properly in a long time. She’s just seen the partying, the drop offs by the police after curfew, the foul temper and worse language. But here is her sister, two years younger, actually making some fairly astute observations – ones that make Laurel uncomfortable. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The eye roll makes a return. “Whatever. I’d tell you to let someone else have a turn with him but then being with you never stopped him from sleeping around.” She ducks back out of sight with a reminder that they’re still leaving in ten minutes.

Laurel stands in the middle of her room, her stomach tied up in knots. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. Her hands clench into fists and then release. She lets out the breath in a long sigh before hunting for her own shoes. Maybe she should stay home, or call up one of her other friends – Cara’s going to be across town at a party she thinks will be good. But no. Laurel’s already committed to going to this one, and Oliver will likely have a date.

-x-x-x-

“Laurel and Sarah Lance always the sexiest pair in the room.” Tommy’s standing the foyer to the Queen’s mansion with two girls who pout at his words. They’re both blonde and model beautiful with abbreviated outfits that Laurel doubts she could pull off half as well.

She can’t see any guests yet, but then it is still early. “You know one of these days you’re going to say that and I’ll have a drink in my hand,” Laurel says as she hugs him and lets him kiss her on the cheek.

Tommy draws back, but keeps a hand on her hip for a moment before letting it fall away. His grin is cheeky, the same one she remembers him giving to all their teachers in middle school. “Are you kidding me? I always check first.” He hugs Sarah.

The two strangers whine loud enough to be heard and he introduces them. The one he designates as Oliver’s date has glassy eyes and slurred speech while the other is overly bright, drink listing to one side. Laurel narrows her eyes and makes a mental note to keep watch of Sarah. Alcohol is one thing but drugs is another altogether.

Sarah accepts a glass of wine from Tommy and Laurel would object to that as well but they’ve had the ‘I know how long you’ve been drinking conversation’. Tommy pours another for Laurel and when he presses it into her hand she pulls him aside out of earshot while Sarah attempts to make conversation with the two blondes. He makes a face at her but allows her to drag him across the room.

“Tommy, those two are completely spaced,” Laurel hisses, gripping his arm, digging her nails into his sleeve.

He shrugs, but his eyes float sideways. He sips his drink.

“Seriously?” Understanding dawns. “Oh my god. How stupid are you?” She studies him carefully but his eyes are clear and she can only smell alcohol on his breath – a product of the half a glass he’s already had, probably.

“Hey, they asked.”

“So you bought them…” She swallows, her nostrils flare and her lips curl in disgust.

“Actually, Oliver did.” His expression is petulant but clears when he sighs. “Hey Sarah,” he calls. “Come keep your sister company. She’s disapproving of my life choices.”

Sarah comes over smirking. She slides an arm around Tommy’s waist and leans up to kiss him on the cheek. “Don’t worry about it. Princess Perfect Laurel disapproves of everyone’s choices.” They both ignore Laurel’s annoyance. “Hey, where’s Ollie, anyway? Isn’t he meant to be out here playing host.”

“There’s been a problem with the DJ, so you get to have me instead.” And true to his words the next round of guests start arriving and he smoothly intercepts them with offers of drinks, leaving Laurel and Sarah to mingle on their own.

Sarah spends the first hour or so trying to find someone to set Laurel up with until she finds someone for herself and Laurel drifts off to find her friends. She only sees Oliver in passing and neither of them stop to talk, just acknowledge each other and move on. She sees him every so often in the distance after that, playing the good natured host to the hilt. Only once does she catch him watching her so she assumes she’s imagining his eyes on her the all the other times.

The night is fun, mostly. Laurel catches up with friends from high school and makes small talk about classes and jokes about terrible first dates. Most of them grin and share their own stories but a few look away uncomfortably before asking about her and Oliver. Frustrated, she wonders why they’re still an object a gossip a year after school finished and what people can possibly saying about her now.

She’s had more to drink than she intended and it’s later than she expected when she starts looking for Sarah so they can go home. She still hasn’t spoken to Oliver, but she’s crossed paths with Tommy more than once. The crowd has thinned considerably and she doesn’t recognise anyone as she wanders through the house. She’s sleepy and irritable and she’s a little annoyed that Sarah doesn’t seem to be anywhere.

She finds a small antechamber so she can call Sarah and tugs her phone out of her purse only to find herself confronted by Oliver, Tommy hovering in the door. Immediately she feels the air charged and her skin prickles. His expression is obstinate and he’s almost certainly as drunk as she is, if not more so.

“Can we talk?” but his voice is soft and his words distinct.

“About what, Ollie? It’s late, I want to go home.” She makes herself meet his eyes, rather than let her gaze settle on his lips. Drunk, she reminds herself. Drunk people make stupid decisions. Deliberately she decides this is not a conversation she should be in on and makes to walk past him.

He reaches for her as she passes but avoids actually touching her. “Hey. Please. I just want to know why you broke up with me.” Memory ghosts his fingers down her arm, soft and warm. She steps back and he lets her.

Definitely not a conversation she wants to be in on but she forces her sluggish brain to try and come up with something appropriate and conciliatory to tell him. Anything but the truth. “Oliver…” 

“Yeah, we’re all dying to know: was it the DUI or the lingerie model in the fountain?” Tommy is still standing at the door, a drink in his hand. If Oliver seems relatively sober then his best friend is completely wasted.

“ _Get lost, Tommy,_ ” she snaps. Having this conversation is going to be bad enough but an audience will make it ten times worse. Especially as Tommy is not exactly impartial. She doesn’t know what he means about the model and the fountain but it does confirm some of the suspicions she’d had at the time. And while that should be enough that she experiences triumph or betrayal, it only serves to make her even guiltier. 

Tommy shrugs, takes another swig of his drink and stumbles out of the doorway and down the hall. She waits until she’s sure he’s out of earshot.

“Well?” Oliver asks when she looks back. “What was it?”

She shakes his head at his egocentric nature. “Why do you assume it had anything to do with you?”

“Because you dumped me! What else am I supposed to think?”

“Then let me put your mind at rest. It wasn’t you, it was me. I ended it because our whole relationship was one self-destructive step after another. One of us had to get out. I chose me.”

“I don’t believe you. We were happy.”

She stares at him. Even when she’s just been handed very near proof that he was unfaithful, he still says that they were ‘happy’. “What planet are you living on, Oliver? How could you possibly think that either of us were _happy_? Was it when you cheated on me?” He cringes and looks down at her feet and any hopes she has that maybe that wasn’t the case disappear. “Or when I cheated on you?”

He didn’t know that. The way his head snaps up and his jaw drops, demonstrates that clearly. “What?” he says. He gapes at her like a fish.

Laurel takes a deep breath, she’ hadn’t meant to tell him but now she has she decides to go the full distance. “I slept with Ashwin.” She folds her arms across her chest, shoulders hunched and focusses on his chin so she doesn’t have to see his expression.

The words just hang between them for long moments and he continues to stare at her without saying anything. An age passes but he closes his mouth, swallows and responds. “I…I…What?” His confusion would be comical if she wasn’t hurting quite so much. She shakes her head, sighs softly and makes to leave again but he holds up a hand and she stops. 

“I don’t care.”

“What?”

“I don’t care about Ashwin. It’s over now, right?” She wonders if he’s saying what she thinks he’s saying. But she doesn’t confirm or deny his statement and he doesn’t push the issue. “How many times have you ignored…” He trails off.

So she finishes his sentence for him without bothering to pull her punch. “How many times have I ignored you sleeping around behind my back?” He nods minutely and has the grace to look ashamed. “Are you even listening to yourself? There isn’t a score card! I don’t get to cheat on you just because you are a—” This time it’s her that shies away from the direct nature of the conversation, not quite able to put what she wants to say in words.

“Because I’m a two-timing asshole?”

“I didn’t say that.” For a second, Laurel is almost ready to hit him. Her hand twitches, fingers curling. But she is not that person and he didn’t call _her_ those words.

His laugh is bitter and humourless. “But you were thinking it.” 

The words hovering at the tip of her tongue are much more damaging than that. “I broke up with you, Oliver, because it’s not healthy. _This_ is not healthy. We both cheated on each other. Exactly where do we go from here?”

“We can be better.”

“No. We can’t, Ollie. Not like this.” And she’s hurting herself as much as him here. Sarah was right, she shouldn’t have come tonight because there’s nothing she wants nothing more than to fall into his arms. She can reassure him – and herself – that their relationship is going to be fine, they’re going to be fine. Everything is going to be fine. 

But maybe she’s growing up, maybe she’s finally, finally finding the part of her that isn’t in love with him. Or maybe this is just an act of self-preservation. Whatever it is, she can only look at him and see grief and pain and betrayal. Standing in front of her is a friend, the first – only – person she’s ever been in love with; she has lived almost half of her life with him in it. But right now, if she stays here with him, all she can see is a future where they’re both miserable.

“I’m going to find Sarah and go home. I’m sorry I came tonight, Oliver. I’m sorry I can’t do this anymore.”

This time he doesn’t stop her when she walks out.

-x-x-x-

Less than two minutes after she walks out on him, Laurel finds her sister, sitting on the stairs. She is pressed against a guy Laurel vaguely recognises as being the year below her in school and the year above Sarah. Her ankle is tucked over his, hands linked and sitting in her lap, faces bent close together.

Laurel clears her throat so they look up. “I’m going home.”

Sarah untangles herself and stands. She steps down a few steps and reaches holds out her arms. Laurel accepts the hug and just for a second allows herself to be comforted instead of miserable.

“So you, Ollie and parties are still a bad mix?” she asks, smile mostly sweet and only a little sarcastic. “Can I stay? Or do you want me to play the comforting sister? Because, for the record, I suck at that.”

“You can stay. I’m going to go straight to bed anyway.” She drags Sarah down a couple of steps before she can go back to the guy she’s picked up. “Just be careful, okay, think about what Dad will say if you end up in the ER again.”

Sarah grimaces and rubs her wrist. “No, thanks. Not doing that again. Ever.”

“I appreciate that.” Laurel doesn’t want to have to make another trip to the emergency room. Especially as their parents are out of town until Sunday night. She fumbles with her purse and withdraws a foil wrapped package because she knows Sarah doesn’t carry them. “Of course, he’d kill you if you got pregnant.”

Her sister rolls her eyes, but she tucks it in her own purse without comment. “See you tomorrow, sometime then.” 

They hug and Laurel walks off to call a cab. She doesn’t see Oliver again before she leaves.

-x-x-x-


	14. Chapter 14

-x-x-x-

Life proceeds unerringly as if meant to be. Laurel tries to remind herself that this is for the best, that this is better. Her relationship with Oliver exhausted her, it’d become a chore to call him, to wonder if he was going to pick up the phone or if he was more involved with whoever he was sleeping with. She reminds herself that she slept with Ashwin because she was miserable and lonely and craved touch.

She almost believes herself.

At friends’ insisting she continues dating or at least meeting people. Most of them don’t last beyond a first date, the longest she dates anyone is two months. She doesn’t sleep with any of them.

“Am I defective?” she asks Sam. “All I want is some fun and a decent conversation.”

Sam snorts down the line. “Please. You’re setting your standards too high. All I require is great wine and great sex. If they can’t show me at least one of those things then ‘poof’, gone.”

“Sam!”

“What? Does that make me shallow?”

But Laurel is laughing too hard to answer straight away and when she is able to speak all she says is. “I remember when you were sweet and wide-eyed and thought James Malane was the cutest guy in school.”

“James _was_ the best looking guy in school. No, you can’t say Ashwin – he’s always been too skinny. And Oliver had been kicked out by then.”

“Oliver called himself a two-timing asshole to my face. Said that’s what I thought of him.”

“Well, he did cheat on you every time you turned your back and even sometimes when you didn’t.”

“That’s not…”

“You know, Oliver cheating on you doesn’t make you defective, either. It just makes him a jerk.”

“What about if I still love him?”

Sam has no good answers for her.

-x-x-x-

The seasons change, winter comes and so does Christmas. Sarah is suspended for skipping class too many times and getting into fights. Their father yells that she only has ‘six months left’ and their mother pleads for just to ‘keep it together’ but Sarah is defiant and treats them both to a round of silent treatment for a week only relenting on Christmas Eve as they drive up to see their grandmother. Nan has always been able to soothe the moody Sarah when no one else could.

Laurel is glad to return to classes when the holidays are over for a bit of peace and quiet. Her schedule for the semester is an interesting one and she’s looking forward to being able to focus on something that doesn’t involve her family. At least life on campus doesn’t involve too much in the way of arguing and fights. She can sign up for societies and clubs and offer her services as a tutor for extra money.

On the first Tuesday she’s sitting in a lit. class examining the course outline when a body thumps into the chair next to her. She doesn’t both to look up, though she’s caught the faintest whiff of alcohol, suggesting that he’s dragged himself out of bed for the early morning class after a night of partying. She figures it’s probably some dumb frat guy sitting next to her because the room is nearly full or because he’s looking for a date. So she ignores him.

Until he speaks. “Do the lights in here have to be so bright?”

She starts and turns to stare at him, only snapping her mouth shut when he gives her an amused, slightly pained, ‘hey’. He’s wearing dark glasses, is clutching a cup of coffee and is slumped, hunched in his chair. She hasn’t seen him in months but already she feels lighter for seeing him, despite the disgusting shape he’s in.

“Ollie? What are you doing here?”

“You know you used to hold off the shouting until I was sober.” But his lips are twitching upward. He gives an exaggerated wince.

“I used to be your girlfriend.” And she can’t quite stop her own smile. She should be furious, she should want to shout at him – properly, not just talk loud enough to irritate his head – but mostly she’s glad to see him. 

“And now?” He takes the glasses off and she can see his eyes are a little bloodshot and watery. He slaps a hand over them and peeks through his fingers at her. The action is more adorable than it should be.

“And now you’re my idiotic, hung over ex-boyfriend.” She’s only partly teasing.

“Ouch.” He takes his hands away from his eyes and places them over his heart. “Seriously. My eyes feel like they’re being gouged out by Erica’s nails, but they don’t hurt nearly as much as my heart now does.” But if he really is feeling aggrieved the emotion doesn’t make it past his smile. Or his more genuine wince when the professor starts talking at the front of the class.

Laurel rummages around in her purse and pulls out some painkillers and a half a bottle of water and hands them over to him. He downs both in short order and scrawls ‘my hero’ in her notebook. He spends the rest of the lesson writing notes to her, most of them snarky comments about the professor and the other students. Eventually she writes back ‘are we in seventh grade?’ but it doesn’t stop him and she has to admit that he livens up what would have been a dry lecture on gothic literature.

“I really, really need more coffee. Please tell me you know somewhere with the good stuff.” She has to admit he does look a little pale and sweaty and his last few notes were nearly illegible. “Close by.”

She leads him to her favourite coffee shop where her friend Marisa works. The short walk helps and by the time they’re ready to order he introduces himself to Mari as ‘Laurel’s idiotic, hung over ex-boyfriend, Oliver’. He orders himself a tall Americano with three shots of espresso and herself a small soy latte. She pats him on the arm for not only remembering her order but for checking to make sure that’s what she wants.

At their table – in the back corner – they don’t talk. Laurel tries a couple of times to start a conversation but although Oliver tries he does seem to be going downhill again. When their drinks arrive he takes a sip of his and then pushes it away with a grimace, apparently having forgotten to sweeten it. Laurel sighs and pulls it towards herself.

“You weren’t just drinking last night, were you?” she asks. She rips the top of three packets of sugar and tips them one by one into his coffee, stirring until she’s sure they’re all mixed in completely. She adds a fourth for good measure and passes it back to him.

“Will you shout at me if I say ‘no’?” He takes his sweetened coffee and seems to enjoy it more. She sighs and takes a sip of her own drink.

“Not even your ex-girlfriend is that cruel. Why aren’t you at home in bed, Ollie?”

“First day of a new semester and I’m turning over a new leaf.” She just barely moves his drink out of the way to keep it from going everywhere when he buries his face in his hands. “But let me tell you, new leaves really suck.” Her pat this time is comforting.

“Uhuh. You do realise that it’s the second day of the new semester and you’re hung over?” She may be having more fun with this than she should.

Even hungover and coming down from a drug high, Oliver is capable of being charming. He looks up at her, blue eyes intent, if a little unfocussed. “Maybe I just wanted to see you.”

To hide the blush creeping over her cheeks and the way her heart has just started pounding, Laurel digs around in her bag for her phone. “I’m going to call you a cab.” She thinks about driving him home herself, but her next class starts in twenty minutes and she doesn’t want to miss it.

He hugs her as the cab pulls up and she appreciates the way it’s completely platonic. “I missed you, too,” she says. “Please try come to class sober, tomorrow.”

“You’re the best ex-girlfriend ever.” He clutches a fresh cup of sweetened coffee to his chest and manages to not spill it on her.

She holds open the car door for him. “Yeah. And don’t you forget it.”

-x-x-x-

“I need a favour. There’s this fundraiser I need a date for.” 

Laurel lifts her eyebrows and glares. She’ll admit she’s been glad to have Oliver back in her life. And the lunch he’s just bought her is better than anything she’s eaten in a long while. But there is a strict ‘no dating’ clause in their friendship. She also needs him to follow that particular rule because if he doesn’t she won’t last long. Calmly she puts her fork down on her plate.

Oliver winces clearly having gathered her thoughts from her expression. “It’s for the war. I think we’re supporting it. Or maybe we’re against it. Maybe it’s for the soldiers…” he frowns and Laurel rolls her eyes. “Anyway, Mom was very clear that whoever went with me had to be someone who could at least locate Iraq on the map.”

“Your mom doesn’t have a high opinion of the girls you date, does she?”

He pretends not hear the comment. “So, I thought about the only person I know who can ace every geography test ever.” Laurel feels her eyebrows rise again. They’ve argued the importance of knowing current events before. “Except for that time in the tenth grade which was completely Tommy and Melissa’s fault, anyway. Also I want it to be someone who isn’t boring.”

“Not boring and finding Iraq on a map covers a lot of ground. I’m not the only person who ticks both those boxes.” But there are butterflies in her stomach and she knows if he presses she’ll say yes. 

“But I want it to be you.” And when he makes comments like that she knows that no matter what lip service he pays her, he’s angling for a relationship. The point where she gives in is not too far away.

She chews that one over as long as she can before she relents. “I’ll go with you. But it is not a date.”

“Of course not. We’re just friends,” he says, smiling brightly and she almost believes he means it.

-x-x-x-

The fundraiser is long and boring but Laurel isn’t interesting enough for her and Oliver to end up in the newspaper which is a relief. One internet poll appears with a slide show of pictures of her and Oliver from the time she started publicly appearing as his girlfriend to the fundraiser and some that appear to have been taken since Oliver enrolled in SCU. In the response to whether or not she and Oliver are back together she clicks ‘No’ and the results flick up on the screen to show she’s in the minority – 37.6% say ‘Yes’ and 43.7% say they ‘Don’t care’. She takes comfort in the last one as the less newsworthy she is, the better. The comments range from vitriolic to lewd and she gives up after the first dozen.

She kisses him three days later. They’re sitting on the floor in her family’s living room writing assignments. Or rather, she’s helping him write his because hers are already done. He’s swearing at his laptop when she reaches over and cups his cheek. She leans in and presses her lips to his. The kiss is brief and light, but when she pulls back she finds his eyes closed.

His lashes flutter open and she’s once again on the receiving end of the same assessing look he’s been giving her for weeks. He licks his lips and she couldn’t look away if she tried. He finally ducks his head down and kisses her back, long and deep. He moves closer until he’s crouching in front of her and she opens her mouth, sitting up to balance out the height difference.

In response he all but lifts her up to the couch and climbs on top of her managing to break the kiss for the shortest possible time. His weight presses her down, even with him balancing most of it on his arms, she’d forgotten she enjoyed the sensation. She tugs his shirt away from his trousers to reach more skin and she moans when his lips work their way down her neck, leaving a trail of fire. This is moving fast, but she doesn’t care.

“Oh, god, my eyes! My poor, innocent eyes.” 

Oliver starts at the sound but Laurel’s too used to Sarah shouting whatever she’s feeling at any given minute to be surprised. She does tilt her head back so she can see her sister while Oliver looks up.

“You’ve never been innocent.” She may not be surprised, but Laurel is annoyed at the interruption.

“I might have been! You do know you have a bedroom, right? One where you can go and have alone time with your boyfriend or not-boyfriend or whatever the hell he is.” Sarah is actually blushing, gaze not actually on them so Laurel removes her hand from under Oliver’s shirt, nudging him up.

He mutters ‘boyfriend’ under his breath but doesn’t resist. He rises from the couch when she does and takes her offered hand.

“I’m sorry, Sarah. We’ll be more discreet in the future,” Laurel says, leading Oliver to her bedroom. Clearly discretion doesn’t begin today. Yet for all she’s been mentally protesting this for weeks, it’s very clear to her that she actually does want this.

“Damn straight,” Sarah says as they pass but doesn’t look at either of them.

-x-x-x-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out my new fic: 'Through the Peaks and Twisty Canyons'.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait. The chapter is the longest so far. I was intending on this being a happy chapter. Sorry. The Halloween scene however has been almost completely cut to become a stand alone. Look out for that in a few days.

-x-x-x-

Life is good. Oliver plays the part of the adoring boyfriend well, and seems disinclined to stray. She eats meals with his family, attends society events on his arm, gains some popularity in the tabloids and has her outfits and hair analysed on gossip websites. She is mostly ignored by reporters, but every now and again one or another will catch up with and ask a few probing questions. Very quickly she learns to say nothing more than she is very happy and she trusts Oliver.

She is and she does. Maybe it’s a failing, but she trusts him so easily.

People line up to tell her she’s foolish, that he’s broken her heart before (and she’s broken his), that this only going to end in tears. And if she honest with herself – deep down somewhere dark and hidden – she knows they might be right. A track record sitting at nearly seven years of off-again-on-again relationship woes have left their mark. She’d be blind to not notice the patterns their lives have taken. This is the up, the fun, happy part, the part that always seems that it’ll last forever. She’s been here long enough to know that sooner or later he’ll wander while she’s at home studying or at work or she’ll become annoyed at his refusal to make much of anything seriously, attending parties and not studying. 

What most people don’t see, however, is the way he treats her. They never seem to notice how much time and attention he puts into making her smile. When she’s within reach he’s always touching her – a hand in the small of her back or curled around her own or resting lightly on her forearm. If she’s not in reach his eyes will follow her around the room, she doesn’t have to check on him because he’s constantly checking on her.

“So, he’s like a stalker?” says Sam when Laurel tries to explain.

“You know you’ve got to get over this irrational hatred of him,” Laurel says.

“It’s not irrational.”

He tells her he loves her, not often, but he’ll whisper it into her hair when they manage to steal a few minutes to themselves or as he brushes his lips past her cheek when they’re in public. Each time, she draws the words in close and holds them to herself. And for so long everything is so good, she allows herself to believe that it will keep on being that way.

The first time it happens she’s not even sure anything did happen. But he only gives her flowers when he’s feeling guilty. He’s always given her little gifts for a variety of reasons, but flowers are what he reserves for when he’s done something he knows he shouldn’t have. The habit is one he seems unaware of, but Laurel can’t help but jump to conclusions. If he’s giving her flowers then…

When it doesn’t happen a second time, she relaxes. She breathes out and returns to prodding him into completing assignments on time and turning up to class regularly.

-x-x-x-

Halloween and she’s standing in Oliver’s bathroom staring at her reflection. She’s not entirely sure she has enough courage to go out and face her boyfriend, let alone go out in public wearing the outfit.

A light rapping on the door, reminds her he’s waiting and that he will come in if she doesn’t go out. She takes a deep breath, thinks about the costumes she’s worn for the last three years and the bikini she’d worn all summer, lounging beside the Queen’s pool. All were at least as revealing as this costume. And yet, she catches one last glimpse in the mirror, none of them were quite so… attention earning.

Oliver stares as she steps out of the bathroom and then purses his lips in a low whistle. “Wow.” He licks his lips, tries to say something but fails. “Wow.” And she certainly has his attention. Sex and desire are familiar to Laurel she knows what it’s like to want and to be wanted. But she finds herself startled by the sheer hunger in Oliver’s eyes as he stalks towards her.

Laurel glances down at herself. “I’m not sure. I feel like going out in this is just asking for trouble.”

He moves into her space, eyes still far too low for her tastes. “If anyone touches you, I’ll break…” he glances up and changes track, “… you’ll break their fingers.” His own slide under the leg of her leotard, his hand warm through the lattice design of the fishnets. “Of course we could just stay here. Tommy won’t miss us.” His lips are on her throat and she tilts her head to give him better access, heat blossoming out from each space.

“Tommy is throwing what he refers to as ‘the biggest Halloween party in the galaxy’. He’s going to miss you if you’re not there.”

“If it’s the biggest party in the galaxy, he’s not even going to notice I’m not there. Out of interest, how high do these tights go?” The words are spoken into her skin and she enjoys the vibration and the whisper of his breath on her skin. He’s pulled one of her straps down her arm and is nibbling his way down her arm.

“Here.” She guides one of his hands to high on her waist, then flicks the strap back up her arm, forcing him to leave off. “And Tommy will miss you if you’re not at his party.” A flick of her fingers is enough to make him move half a step back. 

“I’d have to undress you completely, then.” He looks like he’d do that right now if he thought he could get away with it. His lips are parted and his pupils are wide as he steps back close.

Her skin tingling with promise Laurel almost lets him kiss her. Instead she moves away because she knows that if he does, they’ll never leave. She grabs her jacket and turns for the door knowing that his eyes are following her. What she isn’t expecting is for him to grab her from behind, yanking her back against his chest.

She yelps in surprise. “Ollie!”

His lips find the edge of her jaw. “Are you sure you don’t want to stay here? I’d make it worth your while.”

Laurel shivers and she feels him smile into her skin. The swirling heat in her belly is telling her she should stay here. But she is determined that if she’s going to be wearing this, then they’re going to go to the party. Oliver’s obvious delight aside, she does want to be seen. Lightly she pushes his hands down and walks toward the door, allowing her hips to sway as she goes. His indrawn breath is her reward.

-x-x-x-

Christmas comes and goes and is mostly spent preparing for her final semester of college and for law school. When it comes to study Oliver is mostly useless and more of a distraction than a help so they end up spending a fair amount of time apart. She’s not stupid, she knows the warning signs by now and if the knowledge breaks her little she doesn’t let on to him. 

Although she never says anything, he must be aware she knows because she’s harsher, meaner in those times. She picks fights with him and breaks dates, choosing spend time with other friends instead. The behaviour isn’t a conscious choice – in fact she consciously has to make the decision to not treat him with scorn when she figures out what he’s been up to when she’s not around.

But she loves him and she’s too tangled in his life to walk out. Life with him is wonderful most of the time – when everything is good she is almost too happy with her life and their relationship. When things are good she’s able to forget the bad because she knows her life will be wonderful forever.

-x-x-x-

“I’m sorry.” Tommy’s voice is heavier than she’s ever heard it before and immediately her brains cascades with images of all the terrible things that could have happened.

“For what?” she stares at the computer screen in front of her and the seven hundred and thirty-four words she’s written on an assignment due a week from now. She doesn’t see the two and half neat paragraphs as she’s too focussed on the way her stomach is sinking.

She can just about hear Tommy cringe and she’s not sure why – his past experiences have either been amusing to him or annoying. “Don’t worry, I mean his parents are dealing with it.”

“What’d he do?” she asks a mixture of relieved and irritated. Arrested, then. Despite Tommy’s odd behaviour she breathes out a sigh. What will it be this time? She wonders as she corrects a spelling mistake. Historically a DUI is most likely but she supposes anything that involves drunkenness is an option. She just hopes it isn’t a drug charge. On the other hand, indecent exposure would at least be funny.

“You don’t know?” Tommy nearly chokes on the words. “You haven’t seen the news?” While it’s not unexpected that Oliver’s arrest would make the news there’s something in Tommy’s tone that doesn’t make sense, something that almost frightens her. Any amusement she might be working on creating dies quickly.

“What did he do?” she asks again.

“You really don’t want to hear this from me. I’m sorry.” And Tommy, the coward that he is, hangs up on her.

Laurel pushes herself up from her desk and wonders if information gathering via the news is really the way she wants to find out about why he’s landed himself in a jail cell this time. She stands in the middle of her room contemplating whether or not she should start calling mutual friends to see if any of them have idea what’s going on. A tapping at her door interrupts; when she calls out an answer, it opens to reveal Sarah, eyes firmly refusing to meet Laurel’s.

“You, uh, you should come and watch the news.”

“Why?” Laurel asks and watches as Sarah shifts awkwardly, hesitates and then shakes her head.

“You should just come and watch the news.”

With a sigh Laurel follows her sister out to the living room where both their parents are sitting watching the news. Both look up, anxiously, from a segment on a storm that’s flooding parts of Central America. She’s not waiting long, though, before the next story comes on – the one about Oliver.

The newscaster is reciting, almost gleefully, how a drunken Oliver hit a reporter who’d been trying to film him outside a club in the early hours of the morning. The act itself would be unlikely to prompt more than an eye roll and comment about responsibility so she’s not sure why everyone is acting like he’s killed someone. But when the footage of the incident plays she understands.

The clip clearly shows him with his arm around a woman who is clearly not herself. The newscasters have noticed too and are speculating that if Oliver’s in relationship then why is he’s drinking with the pretty unnamed blond?

All Laurel can do is stare at the screen and pretend she’s just watching some idiot celebrity caught cheating on his girlfriend. But she can’t block out Oliver’s face or the sound of his voice. Her father wraps an arm her shoulders but she shrugs him off, her hand coming up to cover her mouth as she takes in every detail.

“Excuse me,” she says when an advertisement for an all-purpose cleaner starts playing a jingle. She snatches her purse off the table beside the front door and heads out.

She’s not specifically aiming for the Queens’ as she drives through the city but it’s not all that surprising that she finds herself there anyway. She almost reconsiders three times while heading up the drive to the house – it’s not like it isn’t long enough for plenty of contemplation. But she’s still angry and hurt enough that she doesn’t turn back and go home.

Thea answers the door and her eyes go round when she’s who is standing on the doorstep. “Hi, Laurel,” she squeaks, frozen.

“Is he here?” Laurel asks, brushing past Thea, too angry to bother with pleasantries. She waits just long enough for Thea’s nod before storming up to Oliver’s room, grateful that she doesn’t pass either of his parents on the way – her humiliation is bad enough as it is, she doesn’t think she can face Moira or Robert Queen today.

By the time she’s outside his door her anger has completely rekindled and she raises her hand to open the door, not bothering to knock. It’s not like she cares if he’s naked; if he happens to be with the girl on the news, well, that’s just fantastic, she has no problem chewing out both of them.

But Tommy exits half a second before her hand hits the metal of the door handle. They have to dance to one side to avoid a collision and as soon as Tommy sees her he winces. “Oh, hi Laurel.” He throws a look over his shoulder and she can see Oliver behind him flick his head around at the sound of her name. Tommy lowers his voice. “Don’t kill him. You’ll regret it when your dad has to arrest you.”

“Oh.” She pitches her voice at volume Oliver will hear. “I don’t intend on _killing_ him.”

Tommy actually hisses and draws back either in a poor attempt at humour or due to the look on her face, she’s not sure. She steps into Oliver’s room, shuts the door on Tommy and turns to look at the boyfriend she’s thinking she’s going to dump in about two seconds.

“What the hell were you thinking, Oliver?” Her vision shimmers and she has to fight to keep her voice from breaking.

He folds his arms across his chest, setting his jaw. Even in her anger she can tell he’s tired and worried, but because she’s angry she doesn’t care.

“Can we not do this now?” he asks, petulant.

She gapes at him for maybe three seconds before snapping her mouth shut and trying to work through wordless rage to actually say something that isn’t going to sound like a scream. She turns her head aside and stares at a patch of carpet before she does something stupid like hit him.

When she manages to find her voice she surprised at how low and even it sounds. “Do you have any idea what it’s like have people ask you to watch the news but not have them say why because they can’t figure how to tell you your boyfriend has been arrested for punching someone completely unprovoked—

“—not completely _unprovoked_ —” he mutters under his breath but she ignores him.

“—and that he was with another woman at the time? Do you have any clue, Oliver, how _humiliating_ that is?”

“Hey. _I_ was the one arrested. I’m the one who spent most of the day at the police station. I’m the one who could go to jail.” His voice raises with every succeeding statement and when he takes a step forward, she takes one back, noting the way his fists are clenched at his sides. He’s taken to hitting people when he’s angry with them so while she doesn’t think he’ll hit her, she’s not willing to put that theory to a test; self-defence lessons or not.

She’s not backing down however. “I don’t care about that. _I don’t_ ,” she says when he opens his mouth to comment. “Do you have idea what people are going to say about me? To me? What’re going to say for _weeks_ , for as long as this is in the news – longer?”

“Enlighten me. How is this about you?” He drawls the last word, throwing his hands out, palms upward.

She relaxes minutely but doesn’t let her anger slide in the face of his sarcasm. She draws in a deep breath and tries to remain calm, tries not to scream at him or cry. “People are going to stare at me everywhere I go. When I’m on campus, when I’m in class, when I’m at work or just walking down the street. And they’ll be thinking that I’m such a bad girlfriend that you had no option but to cheat on me. And you know what? I can ignore that. I’m actually used to that. I shouldn’t be, but I am.” Now it’s her fists that are curled so tight she’s sure her nails are going to break the skin on her palms.

“But it’s a lot harder when they come and say it to my face. When they call me a slut –because clearly if you’re cheating on me, I cheated on you first. Or they ask if I’m frigid and that I didn’t put out so you were forced to find it elsewhere. Or they just plain tell me I’m a bitch who’s so mean that of course you go looking for someone who isn’t. And then there’s the ones who are sympathetic because I apparently have such low self-esteem that I let you cheat on me.”

She’s breathing hard by the time she finishes and he’s just staring at her, mouth gaping a little. “That’s not true.”

She laughs bitterly. “They’ve done it before, why would you think they won’t do it again?”

“No.” He steps forward a hand outstretched but she’s not ready let him close enough to touch her so she steps back again. His expression twists in frustration but he doesn’t comment on her behaviour. “I mean what they’re saying isn’t true. You’re none of those things.”

“That isn’t going to stop them from saying it.” And the truth is just contemplating the next few weeks and the censure she’s going to have to cope with is exhausting enough that she wants to go home. But Oliver’s staring at her like her words are a revelation to him and she wonders how he missed it before but seemingly has missed it. The knowledge makes her feel hollow instead of hopeful.

In the silence that follows, Laurel decides that it doesn’t matter anymore so she turns to leave. However she only gets to the door, turning the handle before Oliver smack his palm against the heavy wood to keep it closed. She jumps and freezes, startled by the force of the action, but she faces away from him and doesn’t turn around.

“Don’t go.”

“I haven’t got anything else to say.”

“Is this you breaking up with me?” He doesn’t add the ‘again’ but she knows it’s on the tip of his tongue anyway.

“I don’t know.” And she doesn’t. With her anger draining away, she’s realising that she’s still not ready to let him go but, at the same time, can she honestly stay with him and maintain self-respect?

His breath his warm on her cheek but no part of him touches her. “I’m sorry.” His tone is less about forgiveness than it is a plea.

“No. You aren’t. If you were really sorry you wouldn’t do this again – and we both know you will.” God help her, why can’t she kick him to the kerb? Why isn’t she stronger?

“I love you.”

“Do you?” Her breathing is ragged and there are tears stinging in her eyes. She bites her lips as her shoulders slump, hand falling away from the door handle to hang loosely at her side. “Do you really, Oliver? Because it doesn’t feel like it.”

One of his hands rests on her shoulder, the other on her waist and from both places warmth radiates out. Gently he guides her around until she is facing him. His lips are tugged downward, his blue eyes are dark, intent on her own. He ends up gripping her arms, lightly so she can escape if she wants.

Her eyes fall shut and feels the tears that have been threatening from the moment she entered the room start to spill. She lets her head drop until her chin nearly touches her chest. But she doesn’t break away.

“You have no idea how sorry I am.” She can’t see his face but his voice is rough and the fingers on her arms squeeze briefly.

Laurel wants to keep shouting at him because it doesn’t matter if he’s sorry. It still happened and it’ll happen again. It will always happen again. As long as she stays with him she suspects he’ll play around behind her back and they’ll have this conversation a dozen times over. But she’ll stay with him because she loves him and she doesn’t want to think about what will happen without him.

“I can’t imagine my life without you.” This words echo her thoughts and he draws her in close.

The truth is the good times outweigh the bad. She has fun with him, spending time with him is never a chore, she walks away lighter. Then there’s the sex, the heat, the physical pleasure. And it is him that matters, not just having a boyfriend, but having Oliver. She can’t leave him behind, no matter how weak the incidents may make her seem.

When he kisses her, she kisses him back, so she can see that he still loves her as much as she loves him. The kiss is soft, sweet and genuine, focussed – there’s nothing careless in his movements, his intent. But there is intent – this is as much meant as a distraction as an affirmation, so she lets herself be distracted. By the time he pulls her over to the bed, she already has him half undressed. Any thoughts she has of leaving are long gone.

Maybe she’s weak. Most of the time she doesn’t care.

-x-x-x-


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Notes:** This doesn’t quite match up with 2x05 but was mostly written before that episode aired. And 2x05 doesn’t quite match up with season one, anyway.
> 
> This was harrowing to write.

**Tissue warning!**

-x-x-x-

“So, tonight.” Oliver’s question isn’t really a question, more a statement of fact. She’s not sure what he’s stating, or expecting because his tone gives nothing away, but he does know she can’t spend the evening out with him.

“Tonight I’m studying and tomorrow I have to be in an early class.” He still doesn’t seem completely on board with the ‘moving in together’ idea and she’s beginning to become a little nervous about his reticence. She wonders if she should give in and go out with him but her classes are important and she does need to study for them even if he doesn’t agree.

“Boring.”

“We have finals coming up.” She shifts her texts books around, there’s a small one in here on advanced critical theory that she really should reread.

“What’s the point? If I don’t ace these finals, I’m not graduating.”

The book has fallen under her desk, she kneels down to tug it out. “So study. You’re not stupid – if you work hard you can do it.” She puts the book on her desk and runs a hand through her hair, searching for something with which to hold it back.

“Says, Ms GPA four point oh.”

“I worked hard for that.” She takes her book out to the living room so she can read and highlight in peace. “Let me put it this way. If you don’t pass this semester you’ll have to repeat next year.” Laurel’s coached him through enough tests and assignments to know that you put everything on the line he can actually pull through.

“Well, I won’t be at SCU next year.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She settles in the comfiest armchair, tucking her feet under her. Sarah glances up at Laurel from where she’s flipping through a magazine on the couch, shrugs and returns her attention to the page.

“Remember that meeting I had with the Dean last week? According to him if I don’t pass, I’m out.” He’s making an attempt at uncaring, but she can hear the concealed fury underneath the light-heartedness.

“So you’ll have to do it somewhere else. Come on, Ollie. Just do the work.” She has to admit the thought frightens her because if he doesn’t graduate from SCU then it’s unlikely he’ll do so in Starling City. There are other schools, of course, but she doubts that the Queens would ever deign to send Oliver to any of them – even her own parents had refused to send herself or Sarah to them.

“Too late.” Any attempt at cheerful evaporates into snide.

“You’re just giving up? It’s just a few weeks and then you’re out.” If he would only study, she’s sure he can scrape by.

“So you’re not coming out tonight, then?” The change in topic is enough to convince her that she’s not going to win him over today.

“Only if it’s to the library.” Because she’s still determined to do the best she can in her classes.

“I can’t convince you that libraries have loud music and alcohol, can I?” His tone is starting to approach normal, joking even, at the thought of going out clubbing or to a party.

“No. Sorry. But the offer to study is always open.” She disconnects the call after saying she’ll have more free time on the weekend. She won’t, but if she doesn’t make time for him… well, she’s just going to have to make time for him.

The text book might be short, but it’s dense and uninteresting enough to make her wish that she had accepted Oliver’s offer to go out. Sarah’s phone ringing doesn’t immediately catch her attention as she tries to decipher a passage with language that seems more complex than that on a LSAT. Sarah’s tone, oddly furtive, does cause her to look up.

Her sister is quickly leaving the room, giving only one or two word answers to whoever is on the other end of the line. At the door Sarah glances back over her shoulder at Laurel, mouth pulled down.

As soon as Sarah is out of sight Laurel stands to follow her, concerned. She doesn’t think that Sarah is currently dating anyone but she sometimes does go after a guy that she knows their parents wouldn’t like, taking pains to hide it from them. But she doesn’t usually hide from Laurel so if she deems it fit to conceal who she’s seeing then there might be something to be worried about.

By the time Laurel turns down the passage to the bedrooms, Sarah is shutting the door to her bedroom. She catches sight of her older sister and glares, mouthing ‘what?’.

‘Bathroom,’ Laurel mouths back, carrying on past her sister to the room in question. She doesn’t hear Sarah’s door shut until she clicks the lock on the door. Sighing she counts to ten before flushing and running water in the sink, staring at it gurgle down the drain for longer than is strictly necessary. She passes Sarah’s door on the way to the living room, but can hear almost nothing, just muffled laughter and then quiet. Laurel moves on quickly, feeling like a creep for even thinking about eavesdropping.

The book sitting open on the arm of Laurel’s chair is wholly uninviting but she doesn’t really have a choice so she returns to her reading.

Sarah appears an hour later, dressed for an evening out, pretty pink dress that seems at odds with her heavy eye make-up. She grabs a coat off the rack without glancing at Laurel, shoulders stiff. She heads for the front door.

Now even more concerned by Sarah reticence Laurel speaks up. “Where’re you going?”

“Out.” Sarah still isn’t looking at her.

“Where?” Laurel presses.

Sarah, turns back, arms folded across her chest, coat folded across them. Belatedly Laurel realizes it’s her coat that Sarah’s grabbed, but then it will look better with that dress than her own. “Out.” Sarah repeats, shoulders hunching further.

“With who?”

“No one you know. God, why are you interrogating me? You are so like Dad sometimes, it’s not even funny.” But Laurel isn’t buying the impatience, it’s too reminiscent of a misdirection.

“Because when you’re being secretive it usually means nothing good. I just don’t want you to get into trouble.” She leaves off the ‘again’.

“Whatever,” Sarah says. She reaches for the door handle, pauses and then turns back, the smile on her face ringing false as she stares at the carpet in front of Laurel’s chair. “Anyway, you’d like him.”

Laurel snorts. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

This seems to amuse Sarah and for the first time she actually looks directly at Laurel’s face. “Trust me,” she says. Her eyes dart away quickly then she’s turning back to the door with a quick goodbye.

This is the last conversation Laurel is going to have with her sister that’s not an argument about whose turn it is take out the trash. It’s Laurel’s turn but it ends up being a sullen Sarah who takes it out. Weeks later when Laurel realises her mistake she just adds it to the already crushing pile of grief, guilt and anger – not sure can summon up the energy to care.

-x-x-x-

Depending which state you live in, it can take up to seven years to declare a missing person dead. However, if the circumstances leave little doubt that the missing are actually dead and evidence can be produced to support it then death can be declared immediately.

The irony is, bitter though it is, that Laurel hasn’t long finished reading about the clauses for declaring death in absentia.

A distress call from the Queen’s Gambit indicated extreme damage to the yacht and a vicious storm raging. Coupling this information with no trace of bodies and little wreckage anywhere in the vicinity of their last known location is enough evidence for a judge to declare everyone aboard legally dead. The entire process takes two weeks – two long, drawn out weeks where Laurel has plenty of time to plan exactly what she’s going to say to Sarah and Oliver when they’re found alive. She also has plenty of time to work on pretending that Sarah and Oliver are going to be found alive.

It’s not like she’s eating or sleeping, after all.

She misses three days of classes before she finds herself tired of sitting at home watching her parents jump every time the phone rings or someone knocks on the door. It’s never good news, only reporters looking for a story or friends and family asking if Sarah’s been found yet. All of Laurel’s living grandparents – her mother’s mother and both her father’s parents – arrive in the city as fast as humanly possible. Every day they turn up before seven in the morning from their hotels and hover around the apartment until after midnight, spending most of the time fussing over Laurel until she starts locking herself in her room.

Actually leaving the apartment is something of a gauntlet run because the moment she does so, she finds herself confronted with reporters. They have questions for her about Sarah and Oliver’s relationship, like if she knew it was happening or how she feels about her sister and her boyfriend sleeping around behind her back. She is offered money to give interviews, she is followed to and from campus by cameras, her face splashed across all local papers and magazines.

This seems unfair as she is not the only grieving, worried family member of someone lost on board the Gambit. But she is the one with the most scandal attached to her – her grandmother also comments in passing that her looks and age have a lot to do with it. Laurel’s not sure, all she knows is that there is nowhere she can be alone, nowhere she can stop being bothered by people. At home there is her anxious family and friends, everywhere else there is everyone else.

-x-x-x-

Once the deaths are ‘official’ everything takes a dive into horrific because she can no longer hope to see them again. They are dead, she is left nothing but anger and people who seem to want to poke at her wounds at every turn.

Laurel’s used to strangers and acquaintances giving her their opinion on her relationship with Oliver and what she should do about it, but what she’s never taken into consideration is her own anger and grief – and how that affects the way she treats these people. Most days it’s all she can do to keep from shouting at them, let alone be as gracious as they seem to think she should be for their advice or condolences.

As if they have any idea what it’s like to spend so much of your time trying to breathe past the knot in your chest. As if they have any idea what it’s like to not know whether the heavy weight in your heart is rage or grief. As if they have any idea what it’s like to hurt this much and not understand why.

Why did this happened? Why the two people who are supposed to love her best are the ones who ripped her to pieces, laughing all the while?

All she wants to do is scream until she can cry until it stops. Stops being painful. Stops being her life.

Why is this her life? Why were her boyfriend and her sister cheating on her? Why is Sarah dead? Why is Oliver?

Why does she hurt so much?

But there are no answers to the questions that run on a loop through her head. No matter how much she tries to search for answers, nothing comes to her. There is no revealed truths, no pieces that slide into place making everything make sense again. And it never will again. She can’t question the dead. She can’t shout at them. She can’t demand that they apologise until she’s ready to forgive them. She can’t have peace of mind because there is nothing left to soothe her.

Death is only peaceful for the dead. For the living it is nothing but anguish.

-x-x-x-

The pew is hard but the wood warms rapidly to Laurel’s body temperature. She sits with her back straight, her shoulders taut and her eyes unfocussed, staring forward. She doesn’t turn to watch people filing in behind her, though she’s distantly aware of the increase in murmuring, hushed though it is, as more and more people arrive. Some approach but are thankfully gently turned away by Laurel’s grandparents.

All the while Laurel’s mother sobs quietly, catching her breath every few minutes before beginning all over again. Her father is trying to calm her with little success, his voice breaking on every word meant to comfort.

The lilies are so strong that Laurel nearly asks to have them moved but that would require standing and talking. She’s not sure she’s strong enough to do either.

Whatever words people say about Sarah, she has no idea. She guesses they must be nice things – because that’s what you’re supposed to say at funerals. You’re not meant to vilify the dead. Though, truthfully, Laurel doesn’t want to malign Sarah, doesn’t want to stand in front of a room full of people – all of who know exactly what happened – and tell them she hates her sister.

She doesn’t want to remember the way that Sarah died – almost certainly frightened and alone, hopefully quickly – she wants to remember the good parts of her sister’s life. She wants to remember the quick laugh as well as the quick temper, she wants to remember Sarah’s wicked smile and her sense of fun; the years where they were friends, where they trusted each other, where they partied together.

But the truth is she can only think about is how Sarah is dead. She is dead and Laurel will never be able to be angry with her or forgive her again. Everything that Sarah was is lost. And if Laurel stands in front of these people who have come to mourn her sister, she may finally let out that scream that has been stuck in her throat since this all began.

Since it all ended.

-x-x-x-

Tommy approaches her at the reception. She doesn’t even notice he’s there until he catches her elbow – though she has no reason to suspect he wasn’t at the funeral; he and Sarah had been friends for many years. But the faces of everyone in the room have all merged into one and she has no real recollection of talking to anyone in room.

She does know people have been telling her that they’re sorry which she doesn’t understand. What are they sorry for? She knows that you’re supposed to say you’re sorry to (for) the grieving but at the point she cannot comprehend the reason for their remorse. They also try and tell that Sarah’s in a better place which is one of the most ridiculous phrases anyone’s ever tried to placate her. She laughs bitterly in the face of the last person to say it to her – better is being where Laurel can reach Sarah to shake her. Better is alive and well.

Tommy’s hug is different, mechanical and too hard. The day is a warm one, humid even, but there’s no warmth in his body – even his lips pressing to her cheek are cool. It’s hard to picture it, but she knows he’s hurting as much as she is, right now.

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, his expression dark and solemn.

For the first time understands why someone is apologising to her. “You knew?” she says, voicing cracking on the last syllable. Her eyes burn and the world blurs.

“I told…I told him it was a bad idea… I’m sorry this happened. I’m sorry for Sarah.” She can see the way his own eyes are starting to well up, his breath hitching.

She didn’t realise it was possible to hurt even more than she already did. She has to leave because there is no way she can be in this room of people a second longer. But he catches at her arm again, as she moves to leave, and the movement – gentle as it is – holds her in place. Though none have fallen, she can’t see anything or anyone through the tears in her eyes.

“Laurel, please… don’t…”

She throws herself at him – for a heartbeat she’s not sure if it’s to hurt him – wraps her arms around him and starts to sob into his shoulder. Almost automatically, he hugs her back, tighter than before. She feels the tremors running through him, the way his fingers clutch at her reflexively, she can hear the sobs he’s trying to muffle, but she’s too lost in her own grief to do more than pull him closer.

They stand like that for a long time, something immeasurable, or seem to be, but when she’s carefully pulled away from Tommy by her grandmother, she finds that at some point they’ve moved to a corner near the door. Out of the way, Laurel supposes, feeling empty, tears dried, eyes itchy and sore. Tommy’s swaying on his feet a little as he’s escorted out to a cab by Laurel’s uncle.

Laurel allows herself to be guided into her grandmother’s car, surprised to find that there are still tears rolling down her cheeks. She wonders now that she’s started if she’s ever going to stop crying, it feels as if the world has paused and this is the only emotion she’s allowed for the rest of eternity.

-x-x-x-

She doesn’t go to Oliver’s funeral. She means to, tells herself that the closure is important: maybe if she can say goodbye to Oliver she can let go of the pain and start to heal, even if the same was not true of Sarah’s funeral. Maybe she just needs to go to both of them.

But on the day, she dresses in a navy dress with a light jacket for warmth and a pair of modest heels. She forgoes jewellery as so much of it has been gifts from Oliver over the years – she plans on selling anything from him and donating whatever money she gets to a charity – she does not want any part of it touching her skin. When she is ready she has a little time before she should leave, she wants to be on time not early, so she sits down on the end of her bed.

And doesn’t get up for two hours – long after the service will have finished.

-x-x-x-


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look out for a drabble related to this chapter.

**TW: attempt sexual assault as well as (oblique, consensual) mentions of underage sex.**  
-x-x-x- 

The year that follows never seems to let up. Class is the only place she feels human. Law School is the only thing in her life that makes sense – the only thing that doesn’t seem designed to hurt her. At least when everything else is too much for her she can always go back to her books and make the world distant for a while.

The first anniversary of their deaths is made harder by the fact that there is no real anniversary so much as the better part of a month where everything hurts. But the first of the following month rolls around with the same relentless pace as the last year. The only hope she has is that the next one doesn’t bring any more pain. She’s not sure how much she can take before she breaks into more pieces than she’s able to glue back together again.

Yet life moves on and she keeps living.

-x-x-x-

They’ve been at the party around an hour and a half when Jo grabs Laurel’s arm. Laurel, who is already thinking about going home, is jolted out of her reverie “Hey. That girl. Do you think she’s underage?”

Laurel feels her heart stop when she sees the girl Jo is pointing at. Thea. Swallowing back bile, she shakes her head. “No. I don’t _think_ she’s underage. I _know_ she’s underage. She’s fourteen.” And the guy wrapped around her looks like he must be their age if not older.

In the ten or so seconds it takes Laurel to push her way across the room, a couple of thoughts flit their way across her mind. The first is what she was getting up to at fourteen – but, at the same time, Oliver was ten _weeks_ older than her. The second is that neither party seem to be under any kind of coercion. But she pushes it aside knowing that someone as young as Thea at a party full of drunk people is trouble waiting to happen. The last thing she wants is for the young girl to be hurt because she doesn’t understand the danger in which she’s found herself.

Laurel raps the jerk on the shoulder hard and he pulls back slowly and rolls his eyes back at her. He seems unaffected by Laurel’s glare. Laurel has to resist the urge to punch him.

“What?” he asks. His eyes flick up and down her body. Laurel’s fists curl and her teeth clench.

Thea actually flinches, figuring out what’s going on pretty quickly if the way her eyes dart between Laurel and the jerk she’s picked up are any indication. She swallows and doesn’t meet Laurel’s gaze. “Oh, god.”

“Uh-huh.” Laurel says, brows lifting, and she tries not to feel like a disapproving parent. She is furious, just not at Thea. She turns back to the guy, but tilts her head back at Thea. “She’s fourteen.”

The guys sneers and shakes his head. “No she isn’t. She’s nineteen.”

They both turn back to stare at Thea. Maybe it’s the fact that Laurel has watched Thea grow up, but there’s no way she can pass for eighteen. Despite the wickedly high heels, the tiny dress, heavy make-up and expensive jewellery, Thea still looks so young.

“I’ve been at every one of her birthdays since she was three.” Which is not entirely true. She wasn’t at Thea’s most recent or her ninth but this jerk won’t know that. Thea does, but when she puts her hands on her hips and open her mouth to protest, Laurel glares and the younger girl flinches.

“Fuck.” The guy spins on his heel and storms into the crowd. It’s a small comfort that he honestly seemed bothered by how young Thea is but the fact that it had to be pointed out to him when it’s so obvious still bothers her. How many people at this party will take advantage of Thea’s naivety and bravado?

“You bitch. Why’d you have to ruin it for me?” There’s a slight slur to her words, scaring Laurel with just how drunk she is. “Do you hate Ollie so much that you have to ruin my life, too?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, diving through the crowds – thankfully away from the guy she was attached to moments ago.

“What was that about?” Jo materialises at Laurel’s elbow, looking uncomfortable with the small audience that’s gathered.

“That was Thea Queen.” Laurel pitches her voice as low as she can, though the crowd is starting to drift away. She not unaccustomed to being the centre of a commotion of a party, even if she doesn’t particularly like the sensation anymore now that she ever did in the past. She finds a bitter amusement in that, as usual, it a Queen causing the problem and she’s just along for the ride.

Jo stares through the crowd to where the teen has disappeared. “As in…?” She breaks off at Laurel’s glare. “Isn’t she like, twelve?”

Laurel shakes her head. “Fourteen. Excuse me. I have to go and make sure she’s okay.” She leaves Jo with her friend’s boyfriend, reassuring that she’s fine, she just need to make sure that Thea stays fine.

But Thea objects to having a shadow following her everywhere, claiming that Laurel is scaring off everyone who comes near her. Truthfully, Laurel is relieved. Thea is the youngest by a number of years; she’s also alone. She can’t have come by herself but she seems to have no girlfriends with her and certainly no one anyone other than Laurel to watch her back.

At every opportunity, the younger girl tries to lose Laurel. She’ll squeeze between closely packed people into rooms that she can dive into a discussion with, she’ll double back so she flirt with guys who are years her senior, she’ll get others to hide her. In the dark, the noise and the clumps of drunk people, Laurel loses her several times. Finally, almost on the verge of giving up because she can’t find Thea anywhere, she hears a frightened, familiar, young voice asking someone to stop, leave her alone.

Laurel turns a corner to find herself in a mostly empty part of the house with only two other people – Thea and yet another random jerk. The man has Thea trapped against a wall and is laughing and blocking any attempts for her to break away.

“Hey!” Laurel strides forward.

Laurel grabs one of the guy’s arms and yanks it around, twisting it in a way that’ll be painful but not too damaging. She then shoves him hard so he stumbles away from Thea who stays pressed against the wall, hands falling to her sides, eyes wide.

“What the—” the guys regains his balance, stepping into Laurel’s space, looming over her.

“She asked you to stop.” Laurel says, not stepping back so much as putting herself between the guy and Thea. She reaches behind her for the younger girl’s hand, surprised at the strength in the grip. Thea presses herself up against Laurel’s back, trembling and this close – away from the music in the main room, Laurel can hear the hitch in her breathing.

“What are you going to do about it?”

Actually from what she’s seen and what she knows, Laurel thinks she might be able to slow the guy down enough to get herself and Thea away. But there are ways to avoid injuries and ways that might work better. She pulls out her phone.

“What? You calling the cops or something?” He’s still looming closer than she’s comfortable with but Thea’s tucked against her so tightly she can’t move easily. “My word against hers. Nothing happened.”

“The cop I’m calling is my dad. Whose story do you think he’s going to believe?” In her ear she can hear ringing and Laurel hopes the guy doesn’t call her bluff.

“Lau’eh?” in the background she can hear a murmur of voices. A really bad day at work, then, if he’s this drunk and still out.

“Hi, Dad, can you hold on for a second?” She raises her eyebrows up at the guy and waits.

“Laurel? Is everything all right?” Her dad’s voice becomes that much more distinct and the background fades away.

In front of her the guy holds up his hands and backs away, clearly not willing to tangle with either of them anymore. Laurel watches him go, Thea’s head has come up a little bit and is staring over her shoulder.

“It’s fine, Dad. Get a cab home, okay? I can’t drive again tonight.” She feels the weight of the world pressing down on to her, crushing her but she ends the call and turns around to Thea.

The girl is standing with her head hanging, shoulders shaking, looking miserable. Even in the dim lighting her tears and smudged make-up are visible. Gently Laurel tilts Thea’s head up and examines her face. “Are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

Thea shakes her head, still not meeting Laurel’s eyes, more tears falling. She’s a picture of misery, looking younger than her age. “No. You got here too fast…I was so mad at you and you still saved me.”

Laurel shakes her head and then pulls her into a hug. “Of course I did.” She rubs Thea’s back as the younger girl sobs into her shoulder and doesn’t let go until the shaking stops.

She helps the still sniffling Thea to the bathroom, pushing her way to the top of the line, ignoring complaints. Gently she pushes her into the small room – grotty from overuse by a bunch of drunk people but better than nothing – promising that she’ll be outside the whole time. In a matter of minutes Thea has gone from confident to terrified and Laurel seems to have acquired an attachment to her arm.

As soon as the door closes, Laurel fishes Thea’s phone from her purse and flicks through her contacts until she finds the number she’s looking for. She spares only a moment for guilt – knowing in Thea’s shoes, she’d be furious if someone had done this for her at the same age. But age does bring some wisdom and Laurel doesn’t doubt she’s making the right choice.

“Thea? Where are you?” Moira Queen picks up on the second ring, her voice concerned, but not panicked.

“Mrs. Queen, it’s Laurel Lance.” Laurel’s spent the evening worrying about Thea, too distracted to think too much about Sara or Oliver but Moira’s voice brings much of the remembered grief tumbling back.

“Laurel? What are you doing with Thea’s phone?” The concern seems to ramp its way up to anxious and Laurel can’t hold back the stab of pity, also a sense of déjà vu as her own parents received several similar calls throughout Laurel’s own teens.

“I bumped into her at a party. She’s not having a good night. Should I put her in a cab or is there someone who can pick her up?” Laurel hasn’t spoken to Thea’s mother since before… well, since before.

“Of course. Walter – her stepfather – is at a late meeting he should be coming home from, I’ll ask him to stop by. It’ll be much faster than myself driving out there.” She takes the address from Laurel, thanking her for looking after Thea and ends the call without any painful drawing out of what the conversation could have been.

On her own phone Laurel quickly sends a message to Jo apologising because she’s now going to make sure Thea gets home safely and then go home herself. She doubts she can go back to enjoying herself after her evening not that she was a barrel of fun in the first place.

Thea exits the bathroom with most of her make-up missing, lips still tugged down, eyes travelling no higher than Laurel’s chin. She fidgets a little but then turns to glare at the back of a woman who fusses over the wait. The little display of arrogance is reassuring.

Laurel passes Thea’s purse back to her. “I called your mom, she said your stepdad will come and pick you up.”

Thea’s eyes finally rise to Laurel’s, if only for a second. “Was she mad?”

Laurel wraps an arm around Thea’s shoulders and guides her out to the front of the house to wait. “No, more worried. In my experience, ‘mad’ only happens when they can actually see you.”

Outside the house the two of them sit on a low wall where they’ll be easily visible for anyone driving up and where they can easily see both up and down the otherwise quiet street. Thea curls close to Laurel’s side and Laurel keeps an arm around her, Thea’d done something similar once or twice as a young child, though it’d usually been Oliver she’d understandably clung to when upset.

The memory may stab more than a little but Laurel resigns herself to the sensation for the remainder of her evening – at least she’s had enough to drink it’s a touch dulled.

“Were you really at my third birthday?” Thea asks.

“Yes.” Oliver, twelve years old at the time, had not be inclined to face a horde of pre-schoolers and their parents on his own so had demanded that he be allowed to throw his own party for his closest friends. Laurel had been included in the group of six that had spent most of the time upstairs in Oliver’s room playing spin the bottle.

“I don’t remember that. I remember one time when I was like, seven, and you and Ollie made paper planes and then I chased them around. I didn’t think you knew him longer than that.” 

Actually, Thea had been five but Laurel has no desire to explain why she remembers exactly when it occurred. “The first time I met you, you were a year old. You threw peas at your brother during dinner.”

There’s a momentary pause. “Oh, god, that is so embarrassing.”

“Your brother thought so.”

Thea sits up a little bit to look at Laurel. “He has a name you know.”

Laurel sighs and meets Thea’s glare head on. “I know.” But she’s not actually sure she utter it out loud.

“Do you hate him that much?” That’s the second time that Thea has accused Laurel of hating Oliver with very little evidence but then she’s always been more perceptive than most people credit her.

“I think it’s pointless to hate a dead person.” This is the closest she is willing to get to answering that won’t involve an outright lie because if there’s one person in this world who doesn’t deserve to hear what Laurel thinks of Oliver, it’s Thea.

Thankfully Thea is young enough and drunk enough that she doesn’t see the prevarication. After a moment or two she leans back down on Laurel’s shoulder; though now that Thea’s over her fright she’s starting to become more animated.

The pause that follows is more weighted than Laurel expects but she feels Thea tense and take a deep breath twice in an aborted attempt to speak. She does finally drag the courage from somewhere – likely the same place she used to find it to walk along the first floor bannister in her family’s home.

“Can I ask you something?”

Laurel’s not sure what to make of the hesitation and she almost fears more unsettling memories. “Of course.”

She’s not wrong. Thea hesitates again before speaking. “How old were you when you… you know?”

In the interests of avoiding the question Laurel almost asks for clarification. However even if there was any doubt, the vein of Thea’s questions so far erases almost all of it. Laurel considers lying and she thinks she probably should but it’s not as though she would be sparing Thea anything – not pain, not innocence – if she does.

“Fourteen.”

“ _Are you serious_?” From Thea’s point of view it probably seems hypocritical but with the benefit of experience and age, Laurel has a different perspective.

She nods slowly so Thea can see it. “But Thea that guy – the first one – was a creep. I didn’t want you to find that out later.” Laurel’s still considering calling the cops on the second guy. She doesn’t know the extent of Thea’s experience, and she’s not going to pry, but that’s no reason not to protect the younger girl.

“Did you regret it? I mean it was with Ollie, right?”

“No.” Thea’s eyes widen and Laurel guesses that her statement sounds like. “I didn’t regret it. It was my choice.” Oliver is responsible for so much of the pain in her life. But he’s not responsible for her choices.

“I don’t want… I mean, I know what I was doing but I wasn’t really thinking… I guess you really did save me.” Thea’s head is still resting on Laurel’s shoulders but her face is tilted up, eyes glistening with tears.

Laurel doesn’t know if Jerk I would have forced the issue but she’s glad Thea did have to find out. “Here give me your phone.” 

A puzzled Thea does so and Laurel programmes her number into it. “If you find yourself somewhere and you need help, call me, okay?”

Thea nods against Laurel’s shoulder, taking her phone but not putting it away, turning it over in her hands. Laurel doesn’t know if she’ll ever call but can’t, in good conscience, leave her to the clutches of drunk predators at other parties where Laurel isn’t there to look out for her. 

A car pulls up and Thea tenses as the door opens and a man climbs out, dressed in a business suit. Laurel vaguely recalls meeting Walter Steele years ago at some function or another, back when she was dating Oliver. When he sees the two of them, he hurries over.

“Thea. Thank god! Are you all right?”

Thea responds by bursting into tears and throwing herself at her worried and bewildered stepfather. The crying could be a defence mechanism but experience has taught Laurel that, like her brother, Thea tends to use anger when confronted with her own wrong doing.

“She’s okay,” Laurel reassures him, reaching over to rest a hand between Thea’s shoulder blades. “Just frightened.”

“Ms Lance, isn’t it?” Walter asks. “I can’t thank you enough.”

Laurel shrugs, uncomfortable. “It’s fine.” She couldn’t have _not_ looked after Thea once she knew the girl was at the party. “I just wanted to keep her safe.”

He ushers Thea into the car. “Nevertheless, this evening could have ended much worse.” Considering some of the ‘much worse’ Laurel’s seen, she supposes he’s right. “Can I offer you a lift home? Moira would never forgive me if I just left you here.”

Laurel considers the party but she’s already said goodbye to her friends and she has no real interest in staying around. “Thank you.” She climbs through the door the smiling Walter holds open for her and settles next to Thea who once again moulds herself to Laurel’s side.

The ride to Laurel’s apartment is blissfully free of difficult questions that probe into her sore spots. In fact Thea falls asleep before they’re even a quarter of the way there. Laurel watches the city go past, one hand rubbing lightly at Thea’s forearm. At her apartment the younger girl wakes with a protest at the disappearance of her new pillow.

“Thanks for saving me, Laurel.” 

Just before shutting the door, Laurel looks back at the drowsy Thea peering at her through drooping eyelids. She smiles and nods. “Good night, Thea. Stay safe, okay?”

She just hopes that the small nods the girl gives before nodding back off again will be enough of a promise to keep her from harm.

-x-x-x-


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second to last chapter. T.T Last chapter should be up either on the weekend or early next week.
> 
> This skates the edge of being rated 'M' for a few paragraphs in the middle.

-x-x-x-

Every year the wait for the date of declared death is painfully long and hard. The worst part is that with her mom gone and her dad likely to spend the time finding the bottom of a bottom she is left alone. Only a few of her friends are ones who knew her from before – most are ones she knows from Law School. So while aware of what happened they know only what everyone knows: the stories that were played out in front of the media, not the ones that Laurel had to live. She has no way of truly explaining any of it to anyone so she shuts herself away from everyone and tries not to let the grief break her.

Joanna is the only one who bothers to persist and then complains bitterly when Laurel makes her go to the library on a Saturday afternoon only conceding when Laurel agrees to a going for a drink afterwards. She feels as though she loses out on both ends of the bargain but she can’t shut herself away forever – Sara and Oliver can’t be allowed to stop her from living. Or so she tells herself as she sips at her glass of wine and tries not to think of her quiet apartment.

She’s not sure how she ends up paying for a third glass as she watches Jo flirt with some incredibly unattractive guy but at least the hard edges of the world are a little more blunt than they were a glass and a half ago. Still, she’s feeling a little maudlin, trying to ignore the flick of a glance from Jo which implies she should be finding someone with which to dance. 

Lost in thought, Laurel starts as a heavy arm lands on her shoulders and he’s lucky to not end up with her elbow in his stomach. At the last moment she turns the movement into a shove that has him having to catch his himself so he doesn’t tumble off his bar stool.

“Laurel.” His voice is slurred and his eyes a little glazed. “Don’t be mean.” She wouldn’t bother to listen but he’s not only completely wasted but completely miserable. “Buy you a drink?”

She shouldn’t, but she’s already had enough that she can’t quite summon up the wits to argue why. He doesn’t wait for her assent anyway, just signals the bartender – who is more than busy but comes over immediately because bars have risen or fallen on a recommendation of Tommy Merlyn – and orders her another glass. Not of what she’s been drinking but her favourite wine; if he notices her wincing he doesn’t say anything so she lets it go. If Tommy wants to spend that much she’s not going to stop him.

He salutes her with his own glass and goes to stumble off. Concerned, Laurel checks on Jo but finds her friend has disappeared so she follows Tommy, catching his elbow and dragging him to a corner. “How much have you had to drink?” She knows she sounds nagging but she’s had nearly as much experience with a drunken Tommy as she ever had with a drunk Oliver and his behaviour now is disturbing. He’s usually a happy drunk – lots of noise and friends – but here he is quiet, sullen and alone.

“Bad day.” He pouts at her and it’s almost adorable but she’s seen him do better.

“Why?” She knows why.

“It’s today.” Which is about the most accurate things he’s said ever. “We should dance.” While she’s trying to catch up with the abrupt change of subject Tommy grabs her arm and drags her out to the dance floor, shoving their glasses at a ledge as they pass. “You’re good at dancing.”

The press of the crowd allows them little space. His body brushes against her from time to time and she watches his gaze shift from pained to something more undefined. Laurel doesn’t allow herself to relax in the slightest but she does let the music soak into her bones, carrying away some of her troubles. He buys her more expensive wine and matches her drink for drink.

Slowly their dancing becomes closer, far more so than Laurel should allow, her body pressed against his, arms around his neck, his hands on her waist. She’s not oblivious to his likely motives – she’s seen him pick up enough women over the years. And she should put a stop to it but it feels nice to be drunk, to be touched in a way that sends warm uncomplicated tingles though to her fingertips.

When he kisses her, she meets him halfway.

It’s a messy kiss but sends tingles down to her toes. She’s the one who breaks it and when she pulls back his eyes remain closed for a heartbeat. When he opens them they remain on her face and she struggles to read his expression under the dark lighting.

Reaching up she pulls him in for another kiss. She doesn’t fully understand her own motives beyond desire – pure primal want. He takes control, guiding her lips apart and she takes the opportunity to tease him with her tongue. Her reward is a rumble in his chest, a vibration, not a sound.

He breaks the kiss and when she looks up into his face his eyes are dark and his smile odd. Gently he takes her by the hand, leads her off the dance floor and out the club to a taxi waiting nearby, kissing her against the door before guiding her into the vehicle. A heartbeat passes where she realises that she should stop but with blood pounding in her ears she refuses to listen to what is probably good sense.

In the cab it doesn’t take long for her to end up in his lap, his hand under her shirt and his lips on her neck. He breaks off occasionally to tell her he wants her. She tilts her head to kiss him. The driver complains about the display but appears mollified by the hundred dollar bill Tommy shoves at him.

Somehow they arrive at Tommy’s apartment fully clothed and as he pulls her in through his front door she starts to doubt finally but not enough to stop him. Still something must leak through because Tommy tenses against her.

“This is probably a mistake,” Tommy murmurs against her neck as he undoes her bra. His fingers dance lightly down her spine until one hand rests just above her jeans and the other cups her hip. He pulls her closer until they are pressed tightly together.

Sleeping with him probably is a mistake, but Laurel kisses him so she doesn’t have to admit it aloud. Instead she focuses on the flushed heat of skin, the slide of his tongue and the fact he’s rapidly removing their pants. Resolutely she forces herself not to think.

She’s never actually wondered what Tommy would be like in bed, but presumably practice does make perfect because for an eternity she thinks of nothing but how he’s making her feel. She lets him tease her higher until she falls apart and then concentrates on pulling him after her.

Only as they lie on the bed, an inch or so of space between them, does Laurel let the world rush back in to remind her what she’s just done. For the first time in forever she feels warm and relaxed, peaceful, safe. When she turns to look at Tommy he’s on his side looking at her with an expression made unreadable by the dark. With a sudden flash of clarity she realises that she could fall for this man.

Panic strikes and she sits up swinging her legs over the edge of her bed. “We shouldn’t be doing this.” Loving Tommy – as anything other than a friend – is a bad idea for a very long list of reasons that starts with Oliver and ends with her heart being broken again.

She hunts for her clothes visually and locates them by the open door, a shaft of light reaching from the living room, down the hall. Before she can stand up, though, Tommy reaches out and rests a hand on her inner arm. “Laurel.”

She flinches but doesn’t move away, staring at the sleeve of her blouse – the only part sticking out from under his jeans. The mattress shifts as he sits up and moves closer but doesn’t attempt touch her again. Still she can feel his warmth against her back and side tempting her to lean back into him. If she asked he’d probably comfort her without making a pass; if she kissed him he’d kiss her back.

“Laurel,” he says as she hesitates. “Hey.” She turns to look at him and even in the dimness she can see his brow furrowed, the slight down turn of his lips. “You’re right, we probably shouldn’t have done that. I don’t regret it.”

To look away from his eyes she drops her gaze, only to be reminded that they’re both naked and uncovered. She snaps back to his face in time to see him quirk his brows. Humour washes through her swamping the more complex emotions. “You never regret good sex.”

“If that’s your ‘good’, I’d love to see what bar you set ‘pretty fucking amazing’ at.” His tone is indignant, but there’s a smirk playing around his lips and he makes a show of dragging his eyes down her body.

To be fair, despite the roller coaster of emotion she just stepped off, she physically still feels relaxed and boneless. She’s heard him describe conquests to Oliver – she does know a certain amount of what he enjoys – and though she’s never been present for the turn around, it’s not a leap to assume he knows some of what she and Oliver got up to in the bedroom. “You flatter yourself, Merlyn.”

He’s staring at her lips. “Oh, you have no idea.” As he leans in he looks back up to her eyes. “Stay.” He’s not quite asking, but he’s certainly not assuming. 

Laurel flicks her head once in assent before reaching for him and she allows him to pull her down on the bed, so she’s draped over him.

“After all we have to work on ‘pretty fucking amazing’,” he whispers in her ear.

She can’t help the surprised laugh.

-x-x-x-

A clatter from somewhere out in the apartment startles Laurel awake, she throws arm over her eyes to block out the brightness. Her head is aching – not pounding, just unpleasant – her stomach churning a little and the sun shining through a crack in the blinds is exasperating the problem. For a second she’s disorientated; the scent from the sheets is familiar but she can’t place it – she’s definitely not at home.

Gingerly she removes her arm and looks around. Immediately the previous evening comes flooding back to her. Laurel tests the boundaries of her memories and is surprised to find only a touch of regret edged by guilt that she pushes away easily as drinks the glass of water Tommy has left out for her with a couple of pain killers.

He’s also laid out a bathrobe on the end of the bed and draped her clothes over the back of a chair. The robe is soft and warm but she shrugs it off without even tying the belt, choosing instead to put on her clothes from the previous night and combing her fingers through her hair. In the en suite she rinses her mouth out with Listerine then splashes water on her face to clear her head and wash away the last traces of her makeup.

Presentable, she makes her way along the hall to the main room where Tommy is in the kitchen apparently making breakfast. He turns and smiles at her greeting but there’s an uncertain edge to it – which given her freak out in the middle of the night is understandable – he seems pleased when he asks if she slept well and she responds positively.

Tommy’s remembered how she takes her coffee – which after more than a decade of friendship is hardly surprising – but doesn’t know how she likes her eggs. “Is fried, okay?” he asks. “They’re the only type I know how to make.”

“Eggs aren’t that hard, Tommy.” Admittedly, no matter what type of eggs she makes, she still manages to ruin them roughly fifty percent of the time.

“Says you.” She close enough that he can lean down and kiss her.

When he does she’s the one who deepens it – a light touch of her tongue to his lips then opening her mouth. He groans a little and heat floods her. This is a very nice way to start her day. A little too nice. She detaches herself from him gently and looks up. His pupils are dilated but she’s can’t otherwise read his expression.

Until they both smell burning at the same time and Tommy swears, turning back to the stove and snatching the frying pan off the element. The eggs are mostly black and certainly not edible so he scrapes them into the garbage disposal, rinses out the pan and prepares to start again.

“Go and sit over there.” He gestures sharply at the table but smirks when she rolls her eyes. “You’re too distracting.”

Despite the fact that he eyes are watering and her throat tickling from the smoke, she laughs and heads for two person table, curling one leg underneath her as she sits, drinking her coffee. Tommy fusses around cracking new eggs and putting on toast.

“I can’t remember the last time I saw you smile,” he says.

Laurel thinks about that. She’s not miserable, she has a good life that she mostly enjoys – friends, a job, her father – but she wouldn’t go as far as to call herself happy. Sarah’s still dead, as is Oliver, her mother’s still gone and she’s holding too tight to the old days to truly move on from the past.

Shrugging she accepts a plate and a fresh cup of coffee from him. He drags his chair over so he’s beside her rather than across, close enough that she can feel warmth radiating out from him, close enough that their elbows bump.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“What ‘it’, Tommy?” she snaps, because he’s unintentionally wounded her and she can’t quite help being cruel in return.

He draws up sharply in his chair and she feels guilty.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “Can we not talk about it?”

Because even if Sarah and Oliver weren’t dead this would be a really awkward discussion. Given that her boyfriend – his best friend – and her sister died while sneaking around her back the experience is actually horrific.

“Talk about what?” his smile contains an air of innocence that she knows is faked but she plays along curling her lips upward.

She leans in to kiss him and feels her world abruptly shift as he tugs her over his lap and into his chair, between his legs. “Tommy!” There isn’t really enough room for the two of them so she tilts her head back and to the side. “What are you doing?”

“You looked lonely all the way over there.” They both look at Laurel’s chair – a whole five inches away from Tommy’s. 

"Uh-huh." She captures his fork as he brings it to his mouth, stealing his eggs. With one hand he bunches the fabric of her shirt up her side.

She wriggles back a little and he makes a sound low in his throat, burying his nose in the crook of her neck.

-x-x-x-

Several hours later her drives her home and walks her up to her apartment. He kisses her at her door and she presses a hand to his chest. “You’re not coming in.”

He pouts at her but his eyes are still sparkling. “Aww.” And then he surprises her by pulling her into a hug not too much different from the hundred or so hugs he’s given her over the years. “Thank you,” he says into her hair. “I had fun which is more than I expected from this weekend.”

Laurel nods into her shoulder. “Yeah.” He was a good distraction, she has to admit. She pulls back and tilts her head up.

There’s nothing passionate or heated in the way he kisses her but he shudders and pulls away after a few short moments. “We should do this again, sometime.”

“No, we really shouldn’t.” Being with him was nice, amazingly nice, and it certainly helped keep the demons at bay when she needed it most. But he’s bad for her – and her for him – in so many ways.

His lips thin and his eyes tighten but he nods. He leans in and kisses her cheek. “If you ever change your mind call me.”

-x-x-x-

Over the next six months, Laurel ends up in Tommy’s bed twice more and he in hers three times. She tries dating other men in the times between – he’s certainly sleeping with other women – but she doesn’t sleep with them. He’s the only one she feels comfortable letting get that close.

The tabloids have a field day with them, fuelled by a handful of grainy – shockingly indecent – pictures taken with a cell phone outside the club. Laurel is slightly embarrassed by seeing herself looking like any other girl she’s seen Tommy with over the years. Unsurprisingly she finds herself mildly infamous around campus again but she ignores the attention positive, negative and curious.

“How do you stand it?” Jo asks after she’s been hit on by three guys, with varying degrees of sliminess, in less than five minutes (because somehow being seen in a sexually compromising position with one man means that she’s willing to be seen in a sexually compromising situation with other men).

Laurel shrugs. “You get used to it. Now, come on, this mid-term won’t study for itself.”

-x-x-x-

She and Tommy drift apart. Or further apart. She misses him a little but she’s busy with classes and friends and interning and job hunting so it really is only a little. Until one day he knocks on her door and she realises that it’s been nearly four months since she’s seen him.

“No,” she tells him, his too-earnest smile and the very fine bottle of wine he’s holding out to her. “No.” She starts to shut the door on him.

“Wait.”

Knowing she’s going to regret it, she pauses. “This isn’t healthy, Tommy, we can’t keep doing this.”

“Drinking wine together?” She’s seen him charm too many women over the years to be taken in by the innocence in his voice and written across his face.

She shuts the door but has to open it again a few seconds later when he starts knocking again. “Tommy…”

“Just a drink, I promise.” She knows him well enough to know he means it this time. “It would be a waste of this excellent bottle of pinot noir, otherwise.” He turns the bottle around so she gets another look at just how good.

Not entirely sure which of them she should be mistrusting, she lets him inside and pulls out a couple of glasses. She promises herself that she’ll have a drink with him and he will leave and that will be all.

By the time he pours the last of the bottle into her glasses, she’s curled against him, tucking her head under his chin. And she knows that this isn’t the way to convince anyone you’re not going to sleep with them but he’s warm and solid and comforting and for all the bustle of her day-to-day life she’s lonely.

He presses a kiss to her temple and then leans his head against hers. Neither of them speak for a long time. “I wish things were different.”

“Yeah.”

He kisses her again, chase, sweet and pulls away. “I’m going to call a cab.”

Laurel spends days convincing herself that this really is for the best.

-x-x-x-


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry about this guys. Really. Tissue warning.

Chapter Nineteen

Laurel has the television on mostly to combat the silence in her apartment. She’s focussing on the notes she’s made so far on Adam Hunt, highlighting and annotating where she needs more information or where she thinks points are sinking into irrelevance. Hunt is the biggest case she’s taken on so far, though in practise he’s not that much different from the other scumbags she’s beaten before.

“…believed to be Oliver Queen.”

Her head snaps up and she stares at the screen at a picture of him appears on the screen and the newscaster rattles on about how a man claiming to be Oliver has been found on an island in the North China Sea. There is no known information on any of the other people who left aboard the Queen’s Gambit. The anchor rattles on for several minutes about how if it is Oliver then he’s survived five years alone on a deserted island and how that’s an incredible feat…

Laurel tries to scoff, tries to be disbelieving but it’s clear that someone somewhere is convinced that’s what is playing itself out on her screen. As soon as the story changes to one about increasing crime rates in the city she snatches up her tablet and starts searching. She’s unable to find much more than what she just heard and there’s no official word from the Queens.

She should call her father. She should call Tommy. But she can’t bring herself to do so. Instead she stares at a picture that appears at the top of the page of the Starling Evening Herald’s website. Herself and Oliver about six months before he… went missing. She wonders why this? Why now?

Why her?

-x-x-x-

Actually finding him standing in CNRI is a slap in the face. Or a punch in the gut. Something that freezes her blood and sucks the air out of her lungs.

For maybe half a second she’s transported back in time five years but he’s different and she can’t say immediately why. All that she can think is he looks good for someone who drowned half a decade ago and how unfair it’s him and not Sarah who’s alive.

She’s cruel, deliberately so, letting her anger carry her away in the hope that she can drive him away. In the hopes that she can gain back some of the equilibrium that took a nose dive out the window the second she discovered it was him and not Sarah who was coming home.

Tommy turns up on her door step that evening with a bottle of wine, looking a little pale. “For old times sake.”

She doesn’t unfold her arms but she stands back to let him in and doesn’t quite manage to keep the animosity out her voice. “I thought you’d be with Oliver.”

He shrugs and because she’s not doing so moves into her kitchen and pulls out a couple of glasses and fills them, passing one to her. “He’s busy being questioned by your dad.”

Laurel boggles. “He’s been back less than two days!” It’ll only be later that she finds out the whole ‘being drugged and kidnapped by armed men’ story for now she can only assume that Oliver’s making up for lost time.

Tommy shrugs again. There’s a familiar smirk hovering around his mouth and eyes – a smirk she’s learned to interpret as the one he wears when he’s uncomfortable with the situation in which he finds himself. “I’m throwing him a party tomorrow night.”

“And you expect me to come.”

Tommy sips his wine and is silent for a few minutes. “First day of sixth grade. I sat between you and Oliver. You wore a pink ribbon in your hair – you wore it for months. You stared at the teachers all day no matter how much we tried to annoy you.”

Laurel looks down at her hands, swirls the wine around in her glass a little but doesn’t answer. She’d forgotten about that ribbon, but it’d been the only thing she’d owned that hadn’t felt second best to the other girls in her class.

“We’ve been friends so long, I don’t remember much from before then – nothing good, anyway. You, more than anyone, should be there.”

Her eyes burn but she refuses to cry. “Tommy. My sister is dead.”

He nods. “I know.”

She’s not sure he does because Sarah was dead and so was Oliver but now Oliver’s and alive and Sarah never will be. Somehow this is allowed.

“You don’t have to talk to him. You don’t have to stay long. Just come. He’s alive and that’s more than I ever could have hoped for.” For Tommy this is the best week of his life, she doesn’t have to ask him, she just knows. He has back his best friend, the man he considers his brother.

She nods slowly because Oliver is alive and no matter how unfair that is, he is alive and alive is better than dead. She closes her eyes, bites her lip. “Okay.”

When she looks at him again, she’s smiling at her. “Thank you.”

As he leaves he hesitates before kissing her on the cheek – perhaps he’s thinking about them sleeping together when Oliver wasn’t dead all these years. She nearly turns into the kiss and for a heartbeat she considers seducing him because she actually doesn’t care what Oliver thinks about their affair. He has no solid ground to stand on, after all.

But she doesn’t want to spoil this for Tommy so she hugs him tightly and wishes him goodnight.

-x-x-x-

Oliver was never this frustrating before he was lost at sea. Or just as frustrating but in a very different way. The man she used to love is in there somewhere and although she can’t feel for him what she used to feel for him she’s not immune to seeing him smile or having him in her life. But there’s no doubt that he’s been changed by what happened.

But then so has she. So has Tommy. So has Thea and Moira and everyone who knew Oliver before.

But Oliver’s become this person that is all at once familiar and a complete stranger that she knows inside out and can’t figure out at all. When he tells her to stay away from him and then brings her ice cream. When he asks her to defend her in court and then goes out of his way to outline just how broken he really is. When he throws a Christmas party and then lands himself in hospital, crashing his bike.

She’d like to believe her life would be simpler if he wasn’t in it and it probably would. But for all their painful history she knows it wouldn’t be _better_.

-x-x-x-

One night, early in the new year, Laurel finds herself struggling to fall asleep. Tommy’s arm is heavy over her waist, his chest pressed to her back, his breath tickling across her jaw. She’s warm and comfortable but she can’t seem to drop off to sleep. So not to wake Tommy up she crawls out of bed, wraps her robe around herself and wanders out into the living room.

She’s very consciously not making comparisons between Oliver and Tommy, and her relationship with them, in anyway. She has compared every single one of the guys she’s dated to Oliver and all of them have come up wanting – even when she hated him. But she refused to do that to Tommy, even back when he was a one night stand. Knowing what she knows now, she’s very glad that she never did.

That Tommy thinks he could ever be second best to Oliver is more than a little mind boggling. He’s second best to no one. All these years of friendship that was more than just because of their connection to Oliver. And their relationship now is nothing to do with Oliver and as uncertain as she is of its future she knows she’s enjoying what they have now.

He wants more. He’s not pushing. Yet. But he brings her lunch at least twice a week and they’re spending significant chunks of their weekends together.

Laurel’s not exactly a master of long term relationships and considering how the last one ended (and she’s really trying not to compare Tommy to Oliver) she’s wary of letting her heart get too invested in this one. But she’s a long way from shoving Tommy out of her life.

-x-x-x-

After a subdued meal, McKenna and Oliver leave. Laurel stacks the dishwasher, pours the last of the wine into two glasses, sets them on the coffee table and kneels on the couch beside Tommy. She pulls him against her, kissing the top of his head.

“I’m sorry that tonight wasn’t as good as you hoped.”

He laughs humourlessly. “Yeah.” But he turns his head and presses his lips to her collar bone. He tugs her into his lap and goes easily, knees either side of his thighs. She dips her head to meet his lips. 

“Do you know what I love about you?” he murmurs against her neck several minutes later.

“I hope there’s more than one thing.” Admittedly, right now her whole world is about his teeth scraping lightly against her throat.

“Do you know what I love about you right now?” He moves down so his nose presses against her chest, between her breasts. “That you’re good in bed.”

She stands, his hands still resting on her hips. “Maybe we should go there, then.”

He follows, not letting go of her in the slightest. “Also your brilliant ideas.”

-x-x-x-

When he walks out on her she spends hours, days, weeks trying to figure out how they went from happy to him telling her he didn’t love her, that he didn’t want to be with her. And when she tries to talk to him about it, tries to find out what went wrong, tries to fix it he shoves her at Oliver. Hard.

So she sleeps with Oliver because, she realises, she also loves him. She’s gone from being a woman in a happy, healthy relationship to being one in love with two men who also happen to be best friends. How her life has come to this point, she’s not entirely certain, but when she wakes up alone she knows everything has just become that much harder.

-x-x-x-

At the funeral she sits between her father and Oliver and thinks about how she’s been to too many funerals where the person died before their time. She’s not sure how she’s meant to keep breathing when all she has is Oliver’s white-knuckled fingers laced through her own.

She loves him and maybe one day that will be enough, but right now the person she wants to see the most is the one who she’ll never see again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really, really sorry to leave you gyus like that. Really. I didn't mean to. To make up for it I will be posting a Laurel/Oliver fluffy smut fic early next week. Promise.
> 
> **If you've made it this far I really would like to hear your thoughts but I hope you enjoyed reading it anyway (and you don't hate me too much for the ending).**


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